Proud Parenting

LGBTQ Parents - Lesbian Moms & Gay Dads

President Obama cannot imagine a state’s ban on marriage equality being Constitutional

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Changing his mind on an issue he initially said should be left to the states – President Obama said he could not imagine a circumstance in which a state banning marriage equality would be legal.

Today he said, “That’s part of the reason I said, ultimately, I think that, same-sex couples should be able to marry. That’s my personal position. And, frankly, that’s the position that’s reflected – in the briefs that we filed – in the Supreme Court.”

Obama in his second inaugural address said that the fight for gay rights would not be over until marriage was recognized in all states.

“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law,” he said, “for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

[HuffPostPol]

Social scientists take offense at “deeply flawed” anti-gay parenting research

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Recent studies, funded by two conservative-leaning foundations, suggest disadvantages associated with same-sex parents. But enlightened scientists say the research is deeply flawed, and does not measure the effect of same-sex parenting at all. The results don’t have an actual category of gay parents in the project that you can isolate and prove the most important thing in this kid’s childhood is that they were raised by gay parents. The study defined same-sex parenting by asking participants if their parents had ever had same-sex relationships, and whether they had lived with the parent at that time. That led to a “hodgepodge” group of people compared with kids in stable, married homes.

“If growing up with gay or lesbian parents were catastrophic for children, even studies based on small convenience samples would have shown this by now,” said Pennsylvania State University sociologist Paul Amato.

[via HuffPo]

Dr. Peggy Drexler: The Kids Are All Right: Gay Parents Raising Children

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Throughout many years of working with families, I’ve studied the lives of gay parents raising sons and daughters. In general, gay parents tend to be more motivated, more committed, and more thoughtful parents than heterosexual couples. That’s because they usually have to work very hard, and plan very far in advance, to become parents, and so rarely do so by accident.

Earlier this month, when President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage days after North Carolina voted to ban it, he changed the conversation considerably by arguing that concern for children is a reason to support, rather than oppose, gay marriage. He cited gay couples in his own life, “same-sex couples who are as committed, as monogamous, as responsible, as loving a group of parents as any heterosexual couple that I know,” he said. “And in some cases, more so.” His support for gay marriage was itself a landmark turn, but just as notable was its indirect affirmation of gay couples as parents, which served to rebut the standard argument against gay marriage — namely, that it risks the well-being of children and the family.

[via Huffington Post]

Removed lesbian Den Mother petitions to return to Boy Scouts

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“She did a wonderful job, and what they did to her was just horrible. When I told my son Jen was kicked out (of the Boy Scouts) because she is gay, he didn’t know what was wrong… He’s just devastated,” said fellow parent Robert Dunn. “The boys knew her as Tiger Leader Jen, not Gay Tiger Leader Jen,” said parent Crystal Sabinsky. “They are only first graders. Most don’t even understand what ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ mean.”

As an Ohio mom’s Change.org campaign urging the BSA to stop discriminating against gays attracted national attention, surpassing 140,000 supporters, the BSA issued a statement to CNN.com reaffirming the policy that led to the removal of Jennifer Tyrrell, den leader and mother of a seven-year-old Cub Scout, and implied that Tyrrell had taught “young people about sex or sexual orientation.”

Article adapted from original press release

04/25/12

More than 115,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org to support a Ohio Den Mother (a parent leader of Cub Scouts) who was forced to resign from her position explicitly because she is a lesbian.

Article adapted from original press release

04/21/12

Young leader, Zach Wahls says, “as an Eagle Scout (the highest rank the BSA has to offer) I am acutely aware of the effects this policy has on families like mine. I joined the Cub Scouts when I was just 6 years old, at the lowest rank on the totem pole: Tiger Cub. The fact that my moms were lesbians was controversial in this conservative, central Wisconsin town of 20,000, but the Cub Scout Pack (the equivalent of a Boy Scout Troop) decided to adopt a wait-and-see approach.

“Two years later, my moms had become a regular presence at our Pack meetings, offering their thoughts and advice. Slowly, the other parents learned that my moms were not, in fact, insidious agents advancing some nefarious agenda; they were simply concerned with making sure their son (me!) had an enjoyable and enriching experience in the Scouting program — and this sounded strangely familiar to the other parents.”

[via HuffPo]

Follow Zach Wahls on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ZachWahls

Al Franken: Protecting gay students and preventing tragedy in our schools

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Minnesota Senator Al Franken is fighting to pass the Student Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination against any public school student on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. He says, “This critical legislation would forbid schools from discriminating against or ignoring the harassment of students based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Some view this epidemic of suicides as a wake-up call and are looking for ways to prevent future tragedies. We firmly believe that if schools work to create positive cultures and if Congress passes the Student Non-Discrimination Act, those steps will be a huge stride forward in protecting LGBT students from the bullying and harassment that is all too common in schools today.”

After he hanged himself, Justin Aaberg’s mother started talking with other LGBT youth to understand why her son decided to take his own life. “These kids, they just hate themselves,” she told a local radio station. “They literally feel like they want to die.” It is inexcusable that toxic school environments have been contributing to the deaths of innocent children. We must act now to prevent these tragedies.

The Price of Eggs – Are the Guidelines Sexist?

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In 2007, The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) established voluntary guidelines that cap payments to egg donors at $5,000 generally and $10,000 with justification. However, a recent study by Aaron D. Levine, a bioethicist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, found that many fertility recruiters are offering far more than this to young women who meet certain specifications in terms of age, appearance and talent. For example, advertisements at Brown University were as high as $50,000 with similar ads at Yale and Harvard offering $35,000.

Some people may ask: if so many fertility recruiters are not advertising in accordance with ASRM’s guidelines, why have these guidelines at all?

Well, Jacob M. Appel at the Huffington Post makes a good argument regarding donation and sexism that is worth looking at as the debate continues:

“Another, more disturbing underpinning may explain support for caps among some professional groups and right-wing activist: latent sexism. In a culture that generally allows competent adults to assume large risks in pursuit of financial advancement, we suddenly lower the tolerable risk threshold and wave the bloody shirt of “exploitation” when the financial gain will accrue to women through use of their distinctive reproductive biology. Critics of compensated surrogate motherhood and legalized prostitution and a market for eggs all speak the language of exploitation, but what they actually may fear is that women will harness their own sexuality for economic gain. If Ivy League sperm sold for $50,000 on the open market, “donors” would be viewed as enterprising young men, not potential victims of exploitation. In a world where men could donate eggs, our society would never accept even voluntary price controls, such as the ASRM’s, which exert “moral” pressure to keep prices artificially low. That does not mean that selling an egg is without its dangers, anymore than childbirth is without its dangers. In fact, the risks of childbirth are significantly greater. Shouldn’t a civilization that not only allows, but often expects, women to assume the hazards of childbearing without any financial compensation also trust these same women to decide whether selling their eggs is worth the risk?”

Remeber, ASRM’s primary purpose in creating these guidelines is a concern that a higher reimbursement rate will lead to the exploitation of women, although Mr. Appel does not agree with that. ASRM is worried that without these guidelines many women will become egg donors without fully knowing and appreciating the medical and psychological risks of egg donation because of the amount of money they can make doing it. The second concern that ASRM has is that a system with no payment cap would lead to positive eugenics where donors who have desirable traits will be paid more for their eggs than other donors. However, picking a donor with traits the parents deem desirable does not always ensure that the child created from those eggs will have the same traits. ASRM’s third concern is that charging a fair market value would not allow as many parents to enter the market. Not all would-be parents who turn to egg donation can afford to pay their egg donor $50,000 per donation, but many more are able to afford a fee of $5,000.

Do you think that the ASRM guidelines are “latent sexism” towards women who routinely bear the risks of childbearing without any compensation at all or proper for a procedure that entails medical and psychological risks to the donor? Should the compensation egg donors receive be capped by ASRM or be based on a fair market value model?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/sexism-and-the-price-of-e_b_521007.html