Proud Parenting

LGBTQ Parents - Lesbian Moms & Gay Dads

Atlanta mayor supports marriage equality

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Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has evolved on the issue of marriage equality. He says, “It is well known that I have gone through a good bit of reflection on this issue, but listening to the stories of so many people that I know and care about has strengthened my belief that marriage is a fundamental right for everyone. Loving couples, regardless of their sexual orientation, should have the right to marry whomever they want…

“I pledge my support to marriage equality for same-sex couples, consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

[via BET]

Faculty exodus follows University’s ‘Personal Lifestyle Statement’

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Rome Georgia’s Shorter University is making controversy with its personal lifestyle statement which everyone is expected to sign. It rejects homosexuality, and led to an exodus of faculty members. Only 12 percent of the faculty say they plan to stay at the university.

Also, more than two dozen staff members have resigned rather than sign the contract – which includes the pledge, condemning homosexuality, premarital sex and public drinking.

The Baptist school is 139-year-old.

[HuffPo]

Should Georgia schools filter GLBT information from it’s computers?

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Georgia’s Gwinnett County Public Schools recently began blocking access on school computers to websites with content about sexual orientation and gender identity, and some students say they’re concerned. The ACLU got involved after a Brookwood High School senior complained that websites she used to plan for the school’s gay-straight alliance club have been blocked, and a letter has been sent from the ACLU to the schools superintendent, expressing concerns about students’ rights.

School system spokesperson Sloan Roach said officials were looking into the ACLU’s concerns. Roach said the filter was installed according to guidelines of the Children’s Internet Protection Act, a federal law covering access to offensive Internet content.

[via AP]

Leader of Family Equality Council invites Republican gubernatorial candidate to family dinner

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Georgia Republican gubernatorial primary candidate Karen Handel recently said gay parenting is not “in the best interest of the child.” Handel admitted in an interview she does not know any gay parents, so she’s been invited to share a family dinner with executive director of Family Equality Council – Jennifer Chrisler (pictured with her family).

Chrisler points out in an editorial for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that’s it’s common to fear that which you do not know. Karen Handel also stated she would outlaw gay adoptions.

Chrisler says: “We invite her to dinner to meet us and our children, to get a glimpse into life as a gay family. If she cares enough about children waiting for homes she will say yes. She will say yes to experiencing a typical family meal, yes to witnessing love and yes to probably some spilled spaghetti on the floor.”

Court throws out ban on exposing children to gays

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The Georgia Supreme Court threw out a judge’s order that prohibited children in a divorce case from having contact with their father’s gay and lesbian friends.

The ruling is hailed by gay rights advocates who say the decision focuses on the needs of children instead of perpetuating a stigma on the basis of sexual orientation.

According to ajc.com: The state high court’s decision overturned Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards’ blanket prohibition against exposing the children to their father’s gay partners and friends.

“Such an arbitrary classification based on sexual orientation flies in the face of our public policy that encourages divorced parents to participate in the raising of their children,” Justice Robert Benham wrote.

1/26/2009
Gay father in Georgia fights limits on visits with kids

A Georgia man is challenging an order that he not be allowed to entertain “his homosexual partners and friends” while his three minor children visit him once weekly.

The order was entered Oct. 1, 2007, by Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards as part of the divorce case between Eric Mongerson and Sandy Ehlers. Mongerson has appealed this issue and several others to the Georgia Supreme Court.

Edwards ordered that neither of the parents could have “overnight company with a member of the opposite sex, or with any person deemed to be a paramour, unrelated by blood or marriage, in the presence of a child.”

One sentence later Edwards wrote: “Additionally, defendant is prohibited from exposing the children to his homosexual partners and friends.”

In his appeal, Mongerson’s attorneys write that such an order was an abuse of the court’s discretion.

“There was no evidence presented that and the court made no finding that exposing the parties’ children to any of Appellant’s homosexual friends would adversely affect the best interests of the children,” according to the appeal. “Therefore, such a prohibition on appellant’s homosexual friends is an abuse of discretion.”

According to the final order in the case, Mongerson gets visitation with the two youngest children once a week for four hours on his day off from work in addition to two separate one-week visitation periods during summer vacation and the day before or after each child’s birthday.

Edwards ordered Mongerson to pay $1,276 a month in child support along with $800 a month in spousal support until Ehlers dies, remarries or gets a bachelor’s degree. The order also requires her to prove each year that she is still enrolled in college at least part time and making passing grades.

Another boy kills himself, and his mother talks about ‘my bullied son’s last day on earth’

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CNN.com profiles a family, from Dunaire, Georgia, who has suffered from school bullies. Eleven-year-old Jaheem Herrera hung himself, after he was perpetually called “gay” at school.

Jaheem’s mom told CNN: “He used to say Mom they keep telling me this … this gay word, this gay, gay, gay. I’m tired of hearing it, they’re telling me the same thing over and over.”

But while she says her son complained about the bullying, she had no idea how bad it had gotten.

“He told me, but he just got to the point where he didn’t want me to get involved anymore because nothing was done,” she said.

[His mom] Masika Bermudez said she complained to the school about bullying seven or eight times, but it wasn’t enough to save him.

“It [apparently] just got worse and worse and worse until Thursday,” she said. “Just to walk up to that room and see your baby hanging there. My daughter saw this, my baby saw this, my kids are traumatized.”

She said Jaheem was a shy boy just trying to get a good education and make friends.

Less than a month before Jaheem’s death, a boy in Massachusetts killed himself after being bullied, harassed and called “gay.”

Suicide hotline numbers

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-SUICIDE (784-2433)

Image: Flowers and stuffed animals sit at the door step of Jaheem Herrera’s home / CNN.com

Embryo bill passes Georgia Senate

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Southern Voice Atlanta reports that lawmakers stripped an embryo creation bill of several clauses that could have made it more difficult for gays to create families before it was approved in a party line vote.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Preston Smith (R-Rome) boiled the bill down to two paragraphs that banned cloning, chimera human and animal experimentation, and the creation of embryos to create stem cells. Embryos should only be created “for purposes of initiating a human pregnancy … for the treatment of human infertility,” the bill states.

When asked about gay couples, who might not be technically infertile, but cannot have children without a third party, Smith told Southern Voice, “The bill does not speak to that.”

Under contentious questioning on the floor from Senators Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta) and David Adelman (D-Decatur), Smith maintained that the bill would not affect any pregnancy regardless of the circumstances.

Without mentioning surrogacy options for gay parents, Adelman questioned if the bill would curtail using in vitro fertilization for women who aren’t infertile but may have other reasons for avoiding pregnancy, specifically mentioning women with heart problems.

“My concern is that this would limit the use of in-vitro only for the treatment of infertility,” he said.

Smith repeatedly said the bill only limited embryo creation for the purposes of creating a pregnancy, and would not restrict the use of surrogate mothers.

Proposed bill in Georgia would limit number of embryos implanted during IVF

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A proposed Georgia Senate bill [SB 169] would limit the number of embryos fertility clinics may implant in a woman. It is among the first legislation of its kind in the nation.

Sponsor Sen. Ralph Hudgens (R-Hull) said he proposed the bill after learning of Nadya Suleman’s decision to have multiple children through in-vitro fertilization when she already had six children and was on public assistance.

The bill would limit the number of embryos implanted during IVF. Women under 40 years would be limited to only two embryos and women 40 and older could be implanted with three embryos.

The idea has drawn opposition from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

“The bill says that decisions about how to treat [infertility] patients will not be made by patients in consultation with their physicians, but by politicians,” said Sean Tipton, public affairs director for the society.

A similar bill is also being considered by lawmakers in Missouri.

Georgia Appeals Court overturns contempt conviction of lesbian mother. ACLU secured the daughter’s return home

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A nightmare has ended for Elizabeth Hadaway and her daughter [pictured]. Hadaway was convicted of criminal contempt of court last year for not handing her daughter over to foster care after she lost custody solely because she’s a lesbian. A year and one day after a county court judge sentenced Hadaway to 10 days in jail, the Georgia Court of Appeals today overturned her contempt conviction. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented her in the appeal and secured the little girl’s return home from foster care last May, applauded the court’s decision.

“Just yesterday I was watching Emma hunt for Easter eggs and thinking how the possibility of going to jail and being separated from her again made it hard to just enjoy the moment,” said Elizabeth Hadaway, a 29-year-old paramedic who first took in the little girl when the child’s biological mother asked her to raise and adopt Emma. “I’m just so grateful that the court has lifted this burden so we can move on and I can keep focused on making sure Emma has a happy home and a good life.”

Hadaway’s struggle began in 2006, when a Wilkinson County Superior Court judge was on the verge of granting her request to permanently adopt Emma when he noticed in a home study that Hadaway was living with her female partner of seven years. The judge abruptly changed his mind about the adoption request solely because Hadaway is a lesbian. Although Emma’s biological mother told the court that she wanted the child to be raised and adopted by Hadaway, the judge denied the adoption and ordered that Emma be sent back to her biological mother. Hadaway met with the biological mother at a truck stop to hand over the girl. After accepting custody, thus satisfying the court order, the biological mother saw how distraught Emma was at being taken from Hadaway and again insisted that Hadaway should raise the girl. Because Hadaway took Emma back, the Wilkinson County judge then ordered that Emma be sent to live in a foster home and sentenced Hadaway and her attorney to 10 days in jail for contempt of court. The sentence was stayed pending appeal.

Emma, now seven years old, was eventually returned to Hadaway’s care last May after an expert commissioned by Wilkinson County Department of Children and Family Services found that the little girl was experiencing emotional trauma because of the separation from Hadaway. Next, a judge in another Georgia county granted Hadaway permanent custody. DCFS then let Emma return home, but not before she had been in foster care for three months, during which her welfare was seriously compromised.

“We’re pleased that the court has agreed with us that Elizabeth Hadaway shouldn’t do jail time simply for doing the right thing for her child, but it’s unfortunate that it’s taken almost two years of court proceedings to end up with things where Elizabeth, Emma, and Emma’s biological mom wanted them to be in the first place,” said Debbie Seagraves, Executive Director of the ACLU of Georgia. “Elizabeth Hadaway did everything the judge ordered her to do, and she should never have been punished.”

“None of this would have ever happened if the trial court had recognized this child’s needs and not been swayed by misguided beliefs about gay people,” said Ken Choe, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s national Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project. “No child should fear being torn away from home just because his or her parents happen to be gay.”

Hadaway is represented by Ken Choe and James Esseks of the ACLU’s national LGBT Project, and cooperating counsel Dan Bloom of Pachman Richardson, LLC in Atlanta and Amy Waggoner of Aussenberg Waggoner, LLP in Alpharetta.

Article adapted by ProudParenting.com from original press release.
Image Source: Southern Voice

Young lesbians and gays reach out to each other in Savannah and the Lowcountry. Group launches billboard campaign.

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Anne Hart, from Southern Mamas blog, wrote a great piece for the Savannah Morning News about a group of young people who are reaching out to each other for support.

Stand Out Youth offers fellowship and resources to LGBT youth between the ages of 16 and 23. Each week, young men and women from southeast Georgia and the South Carolina Lowcountry gather to talk about coming out, family and religion under the guidance of adult volunteers. Volunteer staff must undergo a background check, drug screening, and training.

Hart writes:

“Not only are the members tired of being called “faggot,” “queer” and “dyke” on a regular basis. They’re also weary of such harassment being accepted by those of us in the mainstream straight community.

“Listening to their stories told in sometimes shaking voices, often on the verge of tears, would elicit compassion from even the most homophobic person.

“Anyone who thinks sexual orientation is a matter of mere personal choice, not a matter of genetics, just needs to hear one Stand Out Youth teen recount how he struggled for years before accepting he was gay.”

Many Stand Out Youth members are victims of bashing – while teachers looked the other way. Some kids say administrators suggested they encouraged the taunting by their own actions.

Hart points out that many homophobes hide behind a religious or cultural tradition that says homosexuality is wrong. And, unfortunately this group of people believe and hope that gay people can find their way back to heterosexuality.

Anne refers to herself as a work-at-home mom, who freelances for various publications – including writing a regular weekly column in the Sunday Accent section of the Savannah Morning News.

Stand Out Youth has launched a billboard campaign. Throughout this month and next, several billboards across Savannah will promote awareness and provide Stand Out Youth contact information.