The Republic of T.

Note: Today is Blogging for LGBT Families Day, the purpose of which is “to indicate that not all families fit the traditional model of one mother and one father.” A good number of my posts today will be in keeping with that theme. So, stay tuned for more here. You can head over to Dana’s for regular updates, and a full listing of participants, blog posts, etc.

Fathers’ Day is rolling around again, and it promises to be a special one (if also an exhausting one) in our house. Parker will make a couple of cards at school, which we’ll display on the fridge. Dylan … well … provided that the teething process isn’t bothering him too much that day, will give us several big grins throughout the day.

The hubby and I will exchange cards, a few extra hugs, and probably just enjoy watching Parker and Dylan. We might sit down on the sofa after the kids are asleep and watch a movie, if I can get something via Netflix that we’ll both enjoy. (We have completely different tastes in movies. I prefer dramas and documentaries &0133; some indies and some kinda “dark” … and he prefers mostly comedies.) Or maybe there’s another option. Asha at Parent Hacks points out that Amazon is having a huge Father’s Day DVD sale

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Ever since I wrote a post about adoption and African American children back in 2004, I get occasional emails from people considering adoption — considering cross-racial adoption, especially — asking for information and advice. I’m not an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but I try to answer them. The interesting thing is that I still get those emails even though I haven’t posted much on the subject since then.

But that post came to mind recently, when I read a New York Times article about race and adoption.

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Maryland has taken two baby-steps towards equality.

Gov. Martin O’Malley signed two bills to bring some of the rights married couples have to unmarried couples — including gay couples — along with measures related to health and support for Maryland veterans.

O’Malley, who supports creating a civil unions law that has yet to find enough support in the Maryland General Assembly, said he believed the bills help address “inequities and unfairness” against committed couples who are not married, including gay couples.

“Without the ability to have the legal protections that say, a civil unions statute would give, then these other bills, will, I suspect, continue to come through the legislature and continue to be approved by the legislature …” O’Malley said.

One of the bills allows unmarried couples more rights to make about a dozen medical decisions for each other, if they meet certain criteria to show they are a committed couple. For example, they would have to show joint checking accounts or joint property ownership to qualify.

The other bill exempts domestic partners from paying property transfer taxes when one person dies.

California gets marriage, and we get … well, … slightly more than we had before.

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I’m going to be on NPR’s News & Notes later this afternoon (1:00 p.m. EST) talking about the California marriage decision, so it seems like as good a time as any to sort out my thoughts on the ruling and its implications.

After recovering from the emotional impact of the ruling, I sat down with the intention of reading the whole thing. I must confess, I only got through the first 90 pages. But after sorting through the legalese, what I saw was a ruling that effectively knocked the legs from under much of the religious conservative (radical right, theocratic, etc.) argument against marriage equality, and even went so far as to speak to some previous state supreme court rulings on the issue.

I’ll admit up front, I’m no lawyer, so I invite any lawyers out there to correct me on any legal issues I miss or get wrong. On the other hand, I know some other gay bloggers whom I respect have philosophical objections to the California ruling, though they’re in favor of same-sex marriage. So, I’ll say up front that I have no philosophical objections to the ruling, nor do I think the court was wrong in making the ruling.

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Not exactly.

The California Supreme Court ruling has brought Bob Barr — presidential candidate and sponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act — out from under his rock to make the following statement.

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I’ve got a few posts in the hopper related to the California Supreme Court marriage ruling, but this one moved to the top of the pile as soon as it was brought to my attention. Of all the conservative responses to the California ruling this one takes the cake. I’ve written about the procreative imperative, which the right wing has tried to establish as the basis of marriage. I’ve written an entire (and ongoing) series challenging the rightwing notion that marriage is only for making babies and only for people who can (or possibly could, if miraculously cured of infertility) makes babies. (But not for people who can raise well-rounded, developmentally normal children they didn’t conceive together in loving, safe, supportive homes.)

This, however, makes all of that seem almost logical. Forget about making babies. Forget about raising happy, healthy children. In their increasingly desperate question to narrow marriage down to something two queers can’t possibly accomplish together, they’ve boiled it down to this: in order for a marriage to be valid a penis must go into a vagina.

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I knew as soon as the California Supreme Court marriage ruling was posted, that I would read the whole thing. I started reading it at my desk, after it was posted, but stopped once got to the “bottom line” of the ruling — and, truly, because as I realized what I was reading, and what the California Supreme Court had said, the emotion was too much.

I wasn’t born when the Brown v. Board of Education ruling was handed down, so I don’t know what it was like for those Black Americans who heard it or read it and realized what the court had done. But I think I have an idea, based on what I felt yesterday after reading the decision.

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By now, it’s not news, I’m sure. But equality won a victory in California today.

The California Supreme Court has overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that would make the nation’s most populous state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings.

The justices’ 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion.

The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco’s monthlong same-sex wedding march.

The case before the court involved a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

With the ruling, California could become the second state after Massachusetts where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

There’s more, of course. I’m going to try and get through as much of it as I can, but at some point I’m going to have to find a quiet spot in the office, to cry. (I called the hubby to tell him, but we couldn’t talk for long, because both of us wanted to retain some composure.)

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The Josef/Elisabeth Fritzl story I mentioned in the previous post is becoming something like a horrific automobile accident. At first you don’t want to look, and then when you do you can’t tear your eyes away. There seems to be no end of news stories about it, and as I’ve been reading them it’s occurred to me how easy it is to forget what we’re looking at and what we’re not.

I’m not a lawyer, but if I were and I had Josef Fritzl for a client, I’d advise him to stop talking. I’d muzzle him if I could. But Fritzl can’t stop talking, and no one seems to be able to stop him either.

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I was halfway through writing the previous post when I came across something that made me realize this would be a two-part deal. That’s when I cut the post short and wrote:

The last time we visited Parker’s pre-school, one of teachers said she remembered when we came there with Parker as an infant. She remarked about how well Parker has grown up, and was happy to see that we are raising Dylan too. I think I know what she sees when she looks at our family now. She sees a family with two devoted parents, and two thriving children.

What other people see, I can only imagine. And I can only wish I didn’t have to care.

But it’s obvious that I do have to care.

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I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole yesterday. During a (rare) quiet moment, I took some time to catch up on my news/blog reading. And I finally started reading a collection of news stories that I’d quietly tucked away until I could actually bring myself to read them. I thought that would be a long time, because they were the kind of stories that I usually put out of my mind, because I can’t bear to think about them.

What started me was Katharine’s comment, which linked to Scott’s post about something Felix Fritzl said upon seeing the moon for the first time.

“Is that God up there?” - Felix Fritzl, 5, sees the moon for the first time since leaving the cellar.

And so it began.

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Picking up where a previous post left off, the hubby told me about the conversation he and Parker had in the car yesterday morning, on the way to Parker’s pre-school.

I’m not sure why it is that Parker and his Papa talk politics on their drives to and from home. But Parker made a rather touching leap from the political to the personal in the course of this brief chat.

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Forget green cards. A growing number of Americans are getting hitched to get health insurance.

Some people marry for love, some for companionship, and others for status or money. Now comes another reason to get hitched: health insurance.

In a poll released today, 7% of Americans said they or someone in their household decided to marry in the last year so they could get healthcare benefits via their spouse.

“It’s a small number but a powerful result, because it shows how paying for healthcare is reflected not only in family budgets but in life decisions,” said Drew E. Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which commissioned the survey as part of its regular polling on healthcare.

…What surprised researchers was that such costs had become a factor in marriage decisions. “We should have asked about divorce,” said Altman, joking.

Those who cited health insurance as a factor in deciding to marry tended to have modest incomes. About 6 in 10 were in households making less than $50,000 a year, said Mollyann Brodie, who directs Kaiser’s opinion research. They also were younger, with 4 in 10 between 18 and 34.

Maybe they should have asked about divorce. They’d have found that at least some people stay married for the sake of health insurance.

Whether people get married or stay married for the sake of health insurance, who can blame them?

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