The Republic of T.

I wrote earlier about trying to teach my son empathy, and even earlier about the question — as a parent who’s also a “non-theistic Buddhist” and wishes not to set foot in a church except for weddings and funerals — of how to raise our son with a clear set of values and ethics without having to resort to a return to some form of organized religion with, with it’s unresolved and unresolvable conflicts and baggage. For now, I’m trying to teach Parker to put himself in other people’s shoes and think about how certain actions would make him feel if they were directed at him, just to get across the idea that other people have the same feelings and feel the same pain that he does when he’s hurt. Next comes understanding why he should avoid hurting others, but for now, based on my observations, that much is already starting to filter through.

It’s a conundrum I’ve yet to figure out, but the hubby made a good point when we were discussing it last week (he’s pretty much in the same place I am when it comes to organized religion), that if we don’t bring him up with something in terms of a set of values, he’s more likely to be ripe-for-the-picking if he ever encounters a religious cult or fundamentalism when he’s older. That’s something I definitely don’t want. At the same time, I’m hesitant to “choose” a religion for our son or require him to go through the motions of adhering to a specific one, as I experienced growing up. (Going to church was not an option or a matter of choice in our house. So I went, and sort of pantomimed belief long after I’d give up on the faith I was raised in.)

And in American culture, it’s unavoidable. I can’t tell you how many times in the last four years, we’ve gotten religiously-themed presents for Parker; books about Jesus, Christian-themed toys, etc. I know they’re from well-meaning people who simply made assumptions that our family must be Christian (gay, liberal Christians, but Christians nonetheless, because what else would be be?), but it’s still rather awkward, because we end up making a serious effort not to offend, by not letting it show on our faces that it not “exactly what we wanted” for our son, and quietly setting it aside rather than figuring out a polite way of explaining that we don’t want our son getting those types of gifts. Instead, we quietly give them away.

But I can’t escape the feeling that something is unavoidably encroaching upon our family, it won’t go away if asked politely, and I’m not quite sure what to do about it.

Technorati Tags: buddhism, children, culture, parenting, puppy, religion, secular

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Posted without comment.

If Chief Justice [Earl] Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made…. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.

- 1958 speech on the 1954 Supreme Court decision that effectively ended segregation †

§§§

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others … are known to have left-wing associations. It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed.

- 1965 sermon questioning the motives of the leaders of the civil rights (dubbed by Falwell the civil wrongs) movement †

Technorati Tags: civil rights, current events, falwell, gay rights, homophobia, politics, religion

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[Ed. note: I'm actually out with Parker and his daycare class today a field trip to the zoo. This post was written late Monday night, when I should have been sleeping in preparation for spending the day with 20 or so 3-to-5 year olds.]

I’ve spent the evening reading various posts about diversity in the blogosphere, and I intend to write a longer post about all that I’ve read later. It’s a topic that I’ve blogged about before, and a lot of bandwidth has been burned since the last time I posted about. So I’m trying to figure out what started the fire this time. But reading some of the posts and comments brought to mind an issue that I haven’t written about much.

In, I think I’ve written about net neutrality exactly once. But in reading about diversity in the progressive blogosphere, it occurred to me that net neutrality is an issue that could have a huge impact on that diversity. And progressive people of color could have a huge impact on that issue if we can get our communities and institutions to pay attention to it.

Technorati Tags: blogs, current events, politics, net neutrality, race

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Believe me, the last thing I want to think about are the sex lives of conservative politicians and media mavens, because every time one of their closet doors creaks open something invariably ugly seeps out. I was pretty much MIA from the blogosphere this weekend, except for a couple of posts, and was so far behind on my reading that I didn’t find out until this morning that the Republicans may have another closeted homosexual scandal on their hands.

The CBS News Investigative Unit has learned a man who was a field coordinator in Congressman Patrick McHenry’s (R-NC) 2004 campaign has been indicted for voter fraud in North Carolina.

The indictment charges that Michael Aaron Lay, 26, illegally cast his ballot in two 2004 Congressional primary run-offs in which McHenry was a candidate. The charges indicate that Lay voted in a district where it was not legal for him to vote.

At the time Lay was listed as a resident in a home owned by 32-year-old McHenry but campaign records indicate Lay’s paychecks were sent to an address in Tennessee. McHenry won the primary by only 86 votes. According to Gaston County, North Carolina District Attorney Locke Bell, Lay was indicted on Monday, May 7 by a local grand jury.

There’s a whole lot more to the story than that, and so many people have blogged about it that anything I say would be redundant. So, I’ll just give directions on how to find the good stuff.

Start at Interstate Q. for question on why this young man was leaving his “legal residence” with the congress man at 4:30 on a Thursday morning, on his way back to school. Stop over at Democrats.Com and see Bob Fertick for more back-story on McHenry. Get off at the exit for Blogactive, and keep going past the three other young, male voters who’ve taken up residence with the congressman at some point or another. Or, if you prefer a short cut to the scenic route, just go over to Queerty for a speedy rundown, and take a detour around the blog declaring “war” on “known perverts, louts, and corrupt common criminals” in the Republican party. (Talk about your “war without end”!)

And if that’s not enough, stop by Bradblog for news of how Ann Coulter’s ex-boyfriend tried to get her off the hook in her own voter fraud scandal

Technorati Tags: coulter, current events, gay, gay rights, mchenry, politics

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After posting about Dorothy Norwood’s letter in support of her gay son, I can’t not post the incredible letter that Sally Underwood wrote about her gay son. It’s not new — according to Wikipedia, it was originally published in April of 2000. I may even have posted it before. After three years and thousands of posts, it’s hard to remember.

But after spending the last couple of weeks writing about hate crimes like the recent one in Jamaica, homophobic artists like Buju Banton giving concerts, Virginia Tech and the explosive mix of homophobia and the worship of hyper-masculinity, Sally Underwood’s letter is a much needed reminder that there are parents like her and people like her out there who are making a difference and who aren’t afraid to stand up to bullies, bigots and the like. As Dorothy Norwood’s letter did, it gives me hope.

The world would be a better place if there were more parents like this. Or at least maybe there’d be fewer homeless gay youth. Maybe there’d be fewer murders of transgendered people. Maybe there would be fewer stories like those of Ted Haggard, Paul Barnes, and Mark Foley. Maybe there’d be fewer stories like Brandon Teena, Gwen Araujo, Sakia Gunn, Arthur Warren, Michael Sandy, and Matthew Sheppard.

But don’t take my word for it. Read hers.

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As we usually do on Saturdays, we took Parker to his swimming lesson this morning. As usual, I met Parker in the locker room to get him dried off, dressed, etc. And, as usual, I asked him how his swimming lesson went,if he had fun, etc. And, usually, he enthusiastically tells me it went well. But this time, his enthusiasm had to do with something entirely different, and thus our post-swimming lesson chat went rather differently.

“Daddy, I saw the girl that likes me!”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

I didn’t have time to get the details from Parker, as I still had to get him dressed and stuff, but the hubby later confirmed for me during the ride home that there was indeed some mutual four-year-old flirtation going on between Parker and a girl in his class, and both were equally smitten. (Can’t say I blame her. I mean the kid is pretty darn cute, even if I am a little biased. The hubby says the little girl was quite adorable herself.)

Oh well. It was a rather cute moment in the locker room, and the first time I’ve heard anything like that from Parker.

At least we’ve got a while before he starts dating or anything. Right? Don’t we?

Until yesterday, I hadn’t blogged about marriage much lately. Maybe its our impending nuptials that have me thinking about it. Anyway, when I read stories about what happens to our families without the protections of legal marriage, I can’t help writing about it. I couldn’t help writing about Bobi and Sandi Cote-Whitaker.

And I can’t help writing about little Aidan Scott. He’s two years old, and have two parents at home who love him and who are deeply committed to each other, one of whom stays home to care for him. Aidan is autistic, and for that reason one of his parents stays home to care for him while the other works to support the family and supply much needed health benefits. For now. Depending on how a court ruling turns out, Aidan may not be able to get medical help because his parents are a lesbian couple.

Technorati Tags: courts, current events, family, gay rights, health, homophobia, marriage, parenting, michigan

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I know I posted this once before, but BlogAds is conducting its annual blog reader survey. Some of you have already taken it but if you haven’t I’d appreciate it if you’d take my blog reader survey.
It only takes about 12 minutes of your time. I’ll admit some selfish motives here:

• One, the data gathered by this survey is very useful to me at work.
• Two, I’m also interested in the demographics of those who read this blog.
• Three, it helps plan blog ad sales somehow, which keeps the adstrip on the right full and provides some support for this blog. (Not enough to quit my day job, but every little bit helps.)

So, thanks to those of you who’ve already taken it. And if you haven’t yet, please do!

Dana has a post about the Motherhood Manifesto from Moms Rising, and she’s urging LGBT parents to be a voice in the parents rights movement.

I think it makes sense for LGBT parents to become involved in the parents’-rights movement so it becomes a voice for all parents, not just non-LGBT ones. As I wrote before, I think the parents’-rights movement needs to do more to be inclusive of LGBT families, but we should also extend a hand from our side and show them how we can work together to accomplish our separate, but linked, goals.

Good idea. After all, we’re parents, and anything that’s got to do with parents has to do with us and our kids. And the more visible we are, the more chance we have of finding common ground. It means being engaged and being out, just in a matter-of-fact way about being LGBT parents.

It reminds me of something I read in Abigail’s book. (Abigail, whose dad is gay, blogs at Damn Straight, BTW.)

Being profiled in the paper simply because I was from one of those famiiles is progress, but not success. Success will be when a child with LGBT parents can be profiled for some other reason, and the mention of his or her family can be referenced without sexual orientation becoming the main focus.

To that end, I’ve been doing a bit of that myself this week when I participated in a conference call for “parent bloggers” (We’re not all “mommy bloggers, OK?) hosted by Revolution Health. Full disclosure, Revolution Health is a client of my company, and in the course of planning the call someone said “Hey, we’ve got a blogging parent right here!” So, I joined the call. You can check it out here.

One of the unexpected pleasure of parenthood,lately, is that I get to sing again. At some point, we went from Parker asking me to stop singing around the house (admittedly, in the middle of one of his favorite shows) to Parker actually asking me to sing to him at bedtime and in the car, because he likes it. I admit, I couldn’t help grinning when I heard him say “Daddy’s a good singer.” Made my day, it did.

It started when Parker adopted Cars as his favorite movie. One night after I realized the movie soundtrack contained several songs I knew, rather than sing the theme from Thomas the Train again I asked Parker if I could sing a song from the movie for him. He happily said yes, and I launched into “Route 66″ for him. Since then, I’ve added “Life is a Highway” and “Life Would be a Dream (Sh-boom)” to the set list, though I have to print out the lyrics to get through the first one.

But what’s been the most fun is reaching back into my singer’s brain to find songs that I’d enjoy singing and Parker would enjoy hearing. I came up with “It’s not Easy Being Green” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (the first song I ever sang on stage). The first one’s been requested again, but not the second one, yet.

I’ve been enjoying it so much that I think I might hook up with a voice teacher, just to see what kind of pipes I have left and what I can do with them. But even if I never sing for an audience again, I’ve got at least one ardent fan. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to put together a playlist of Parker’s “lullabyes.” (The last one is a version of “Rainbow” is probably my favorite.)

Technorati Tags: movies, music, parenting

Instant Karma’s gonna get you,
Gonna look you right in the face,
Better get yourself together darlin’,
Join the human race,
How in the world you gonna see,
Laughin’ at fools like me,
Who on earth d’you think you are,
A super star,
Well, right you are.

~ John Lennon, “Instant Karma”

It’s not nice, I know, to gloat over another person’s misfortune, but in this case I think it’s alright to marvel at the wonders of karma, or at least that what goes around occasionally comes around too. Last month I blogged about a website called AutoAdmit, where some law students say anonymous comments cost them jobs. The owner of the site, Anthony Ciolli, refused to remove those comments after the students, citing freedom of speech as the reason. 
Funny how the worm turns. Via Majikethise comes news that Ciolli was recently turned down by a law firm himself.

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Every once in a while the whole notion of being married, or not being married, becomes a lot more real than it is most of the time. After seven years together, like a lot of other same-sex couples, the hubby and I can go about our daily lives without thinking much about the fact that we’re not, and cannot be, married to one another and thus our family doesn’t have the security that the protections of marriage offer. But there are moments when that reality comes into sharp focus.

As I write this, there’s a stack of papers next to my keyboard. In preparation for the R Families Cruise, and our on-ship nuptials, I’ve got various readings, vows, and versions of the ceremony to read either during lunch or my commute home. And, after printing all of that up, I sat down to read Dana’s about a routine call to ask about car insurance that gave me bit of a flashback to my own experience in dealing with retirement accounts.

Technorati Tags: current events, family, gay rights, homophobia, marriage, politics, civil unions

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Not that this is going to mean anything to folks who tend to ignore or distort research like this, but yet another one has declared that gay parents at least as good as heterosexual parents.

A Canadian study has found that same-sex parents are just as good, if not better, than opposite-sex parents.

The study, released by the Canadian Justice Department, was commissioned in 2003 by its then-Liberal government. The study primarily focused on lesbian couples.

The study, authored by Professor Paul Hastings at Concordia University, asserts that children raised by lesbian parents are equally as socially competent as children raised by heterosexual parents.

“A few studies suggest that children with two lesbian mothers may have marginally better social competence than children in traditional nuclear families, even fewer studies show the opposite, and most studies fail to find any differences,” says the 74-page study.

I’m still looking for a copy of the study. I haven’t had a caught up on my blog reading today, so maybe some other queer blogger has gotten their hands on it.

Technorati Tags: canada, family, gay rights, parenting, politics

After writing one particularly long post about the Virginia Tech shootings, followed by a three part series, I thought I’d gotten everything I had to say out of my system. But when we attended the Rainbow Families DC conference a couple of weekends ago, we made it a point to attend the discussion groups on dealing with elementary and middle school as same-sex parents. It was the second one, which asked us to “dream big” and envision what an inclusive curriculum would look like.

When I imagined it, I immediately thought about one aspect of the sex-ed curriculum launched in Montgomery county, Maryland — and fought tooth and nail by PFOX — that I posted about earlier. In particular, I was reminded of a particular aspect of the curriculum that I posted about back in November, entitled “Respect for Differences,” which seemed to inspire (aside from the unit on condoms) the most or the strongest objections from the right. And as I sat there trying to wrap my brain about what a gay-inclusive curriculum would look like, one word kept popping into my head.

Empathy. Defined as (and this is my favorite definition among the ones I found) “feeling of concern and understanding for another’s situation or feelings.”

It sounds simplistic and naive. It probably is. But stay with me here. I promise I’m going somewhere with this.

Technorati Tags: bullying, bush, culture, current events, education, gay rights, politics

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I hadn’t planned to blog about the tornado that devastated Greensburg, Kansas, but I noticed that almost none of the usual suspects have rushed for to blame this natural disaster on gay folks, like when gays were blamed for Katrina. Like Dennis, I half expected that someone would. But perhaps the presumably conservative politics of Kansas means that this is just a case of when bad things happen to good people instead of happening to bad people who really deserve it.

But maybe someone will step up and point the finger soon. Becky over at Preemptive Karma points out that just a year ago Greenburg’s representative objected that a bill to keep Fred Phelps and family from protesting at soldiers’ funerals, claiming it didn’t go far enough.

Old Fred may yet step forward to gloat, but the silence of the rest of the choir makes me wonder if perhaps they’ve come to realize what else Becky points out in her post.

The point is, these catastrophic, tragic events are not caused by God. They are random, horrible events. We may wish to find some meaning or explanation for them, but the fact is, unless you’re willing to admit that God and Mother Nature are one and the same, and I know of no fundamentalist Christian who is, then Mr. Phelps, you don’t have a leg to stand on. (That goes for you, too, Jerry Falwell. And Pat Robertson, too.)

Chances are, though, they haven’t, and if Greensburg Kansas had been, say, San Francisco at least a couple of them would have been shaking their fingers (and their jowls) in the general direction of gays, feminists, and everybody else who isn’t white, male, heterosexual and/or Christian, who’ve “forgotten their place,” and taking a great deal of glee in saying “You helped this happen.”

My guess is that they’re probably scratching their heads trying to figure out what’s the matter with Kansas that God would smite it so.

Technorati Tags: current events, gay rights, politics, religion

Via Stranger Fruit.

Take this letter to the editor, from January of this year. Ignore the fact that the author appears to suggest that freedom of religion only applies to various denominations of Christianity (and perhaps not even all of them).

Ignore that the author seems to think religious belief is a requirement for citizenship (“You must believe.” [Emphasis mine.]).

Ignore the logic by which the author assumes that 10% of the population who identify as atheists are responsible for more or all crime in America, while ignoring that (unless that 10% never sleeps and spends every waking moment committing some crime or another) most of those crimes are committed by the some of the other 90% that claim some belief in God or a supreme being. (Also ignore that religious belief apparently wasn’t enough to stop those believers from committing their crimes.)

Ignore that only six members of Congress are religiously unaffiliated, and only one is a self declared atheist, out of .

Now, remove every occurrence or permutation of the word “atheist” and substitute another group. Here are a few to get you started: Black, Jews, Latinos, Muslims, Homosexuals, Christians, Mormons, etc. Just for fun substitute any social ill that could possibly be blamed on any of the groups above.

Now, tell me. How much outrage would result from the new version of the letter above? How much public disapproval, even from people who don’t belong to any of those groups? How much of what’s in the letter would fall under that category of “what you can’t say” about a particular group, at least not without expecting significant negative response?

Why does it fall under the category of “what you can say” about atheists and expect almost no outrage or disapproval from anyone other than atheists themselves?

Technorati Tags: atheism, atheists, current events, politics, puppy, religious

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. I can’t remember the last time our family took a vacation, but I’ve been feeling the need for one for a while now. Well, it looks like the planets have aligned, and we’re going to get a vacation very soon. It’s one of those happy accidents of life that, in my case, grew out of blogging.

Last weekend we were attending the Rainbow Families DC parenting conference. We’d planned to attend because it seemed like a good activity for a saturday, and an opportunity for us to connect with other LGBT parents and for Parker to see a lot more families like his own. Then I was invited to speak on one of the panels at the conference. That was exciting enough, but while chasing after Parker during his “post-lunch run” I stopped to say hi to Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director of the Family Pride Coalition, and she told me to come back and to her later because she had something special to talk to me about. I couldn’t wait to hear, so I tapped the hubby to watch Parker and went back to talk to Jennifer.

Technorati Tags: blogs, family, gay rights, travel

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As Obama goes, so goes the Democratic party? Maybe. I’ve beat this drum before, for all the good it’s done, but decided to lay off when it became clear to me that it wasn’t going to do much good. It seems like the Democratic party (and the Democratic/progressive netroots) have pretty much decided on a strategy, and one that seems to be working well towards the ends they have in mind. It may have helped the Democrats win Congress, and may yet help them take the White House. Beyond regaining or retaining power, what that mean for the Democratic party — and what it means for long standing constituent groups in the party — remains to be seen. But what I’ve seen thus far makes me think I wasn’t hallucinating when I saw the writing on the wall last June.

BooMan wrote earlier that in a recent poll Obama beats every Republican presidential candidate currently in the field, and by a wider margin than any other Democratic candidate currently in the field. Part of me thinks that may be because thus far the presidential hopefuls from both parties are pretty lackluster. But maybe it’s becuse there’s at least enough shine on Obama to draw Republican voters to support him.

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, bush, current events, elections, politics, obama

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WIth the the vicious hate crime Jamaica and the Buju Banton concert coming on its heels, I haven’t taken time until now to blog about the hate crimes bill that just passed the House.

By 237 to 180, the House voted to include crimes spurred by a victim’s “gender, sexual orientation or gender identity” under the hate-crime designation, which now applies to crimes spurred by the victim’s race, religion, color or national origin.

“The bill is passed,” Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is gay, announced to applause, most of it from Democrats.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, the House vote to include gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity in existing legislation, would have effect of (1) giving the federal government the authority to help investigate bias-motivated attacks based on those three categories, (2) provide additional resources to state and local agencies to help investigate and prosecute these crimes, and (3) allow federal authorities to get involved if local and state authorities fail to or just don’t want to act.

Unfortunately, there was no veto-proof margin in the House vote, and none expected in the Senate, which means that the measure will most likely not pass because Bush is already talking veto.

Under intense pressure from conservative religious organizations to derail the bill, the White House on Thursday called it “unnecessary and constitutionally questionable,” issuing the latest in a string of veto threats aimed at the congressional Democratic majority.

…With Democrats in control, the bill appears certain to reach Bush. But the White House warned in a statement that the president’s “senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”

The statement said state and local laws already covered the violence addressed in the legislation. “There has been no persuasive demonstration of any need to federalize such a potentially large range of violent crime enforcement,” the administration said.

Not surprising from an administration whose approval ratings are now dipping into the 20s. But what’s interesting is the veto promise in the context of the reasons Bush’s right wing support gave for opposing the legislation: They’re afraid they be able to preach hatred and won’t have anyone left to hate. At least, not anyone that it’s OK to hate.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, bush, crime, culture, current events, gender, hate crimes, politics, race, religion

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I don’t do these kinds of posts often. Usually, I just leave stuff floating around my my RSS reader until I can figure out a way to put them into some kind of context. But there’s so many religion-related items in there today, that I decided to put them all in a “remainders” post. But this time in the form of questions.

Like this one.

This man wants to be a priest. Come time for communion, are you willing to kneel in front of him, open your mouth, close your eyes and receive the host? Actually, I’ve always thought he was kinda handsome. That’d almost be enough to get me back into church. Almost.

Technorati Tags: blogs, bush, civil liberties, current events, politics, theocracy, puppy

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