Proud Parenting

LGBTQ Parents - Lesbian Moms & Gay Dads

High school yearbook fallout: Psychiatry instructor updates Bill O’Reilly on modern thinking about lesbian and gay people.

By

Bill O’Reilly took time during one of his recent shows to discuss the Illinois lesbian couple voted “cutest couple” at their high school.

O’Reilly believes the students at the school voted for the girls because the student body – as a whole – wanted to play a prank on the teachers and administrators of the school.

He said, “the kids voted…this couple the cutest couple to tweak the adults…to cause trouble, to make an issue of the yearbook.”

Panelist Dr. Laura Berman – who teaches psychiatry at Northwestern University – responded:

“I don’t think that this is necessarily completely about them (the students) trying to tweak the adults and trying to be provocative. I think this is about – and we’ve seen this in other high schools, as well, it’s starting to become at least a small trend, if not a large one, that homosexuality is becoming, thankfully, more normalized, because this is the time in adolescence that kids are exploring their sexuality and in fact starting to identify what their sexual orientation is.”

Media Matters published the entire transcript. Here’s just a portion:

O’REILLY: …we don’t want to normalize homosexuality in a public way in an academic setting, high school, among minors. We don’t think that reflects…

BERMAN: Why?

O’REILLY: …how we feel about it. Well, for a number of reasons. One, social. It’s much more difficult to be homosexual than a heterosexual in America. Two, religious. There are people who believe that that kind of a life style…

In the clip below, O’Reilly talks about the national crisis of kids learning about sexuality.

O’Reilly’s opinions reach approximately 4 million viewers each month.

New Jersey school district initially supports lesbian and gay parents. But film for third graders upsets a few homophobes.

By

The educational video is titled That’s a Family! and it was produced specifically for elementary school students by Women’s Education Media as part of The Respect For All Project.

It’s a documentary that helps kids understand the many different types of families – including foster parents, adopted families, gay and lesbian parents, divorced parents, single parents, grandparent-headed families, guardians, and multi-racial families. Religous beliefs are also highlighted in the film.

J. Harold Van Zant School showed its third graders the film and a few vocal parents got upset about the possibility of tolerance for lesbians and gays.

The school district decided to shelve the film, provoking the threat of a lawsuit by Garden State Equality, who said the district’s refusal to show the video was a violation of state antidiscrimination laws.

“I felt like we were living in the ’50s,” said Trish Everhart, a member of the parent teacher association at nearby Richard L. Rice Elementary School.

Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, said the district’s decision, which he called outdated and illegal, was based on antigay prejudice.

“It’s not about parental control, it’s about fear of gay people,” Mr. Goldstein said. “We think the school board’s decision hinges on its fear of one community – the lesbian and gay community – and violates the state’s law against discrimination.”

Dear Prudence: “I just found out my dad’s sleeping with his best friend. What should I do?”

By

In this episode of the Slate-sponsored Dear Prudence, a “Disturbed Daughter” asks for advice on what to do about her father after she finds-out dad’s in a relationship with a man.

Prudence makes a throw-away joke about Brokeback Mountain, but then gives sound advice:

“It’s none of your business.”

and

“Be glad your dad has another person in his life.”

Binational couples face difficulty in nightmarish proportions

By

Delays, bureaucracy, inconsistency, and injustice make the U.S. immigration system a nightmare for millions. Debate over the system is intensifying.

Immigration Equality collaborated with Human Rights Watch to research, write, and publish a study about the fate of binational same-sex couples under U.S. law.

The report, called Family, Unvalued, shows how U.S. law fails to protect and serve binational couples. The poorly run system can affect, and sometimes destroy, families without any legal protection. This report reveals how discrimination has grown from a long history of anti-immigrant campaigns. Most of all, Family, Unvalued lets the reader empathize with the sometimes horrifying, always enlightening testimony of lesbian and gay families.

In his The Atlantic Online blog, Andrew Sullivan offers his take on FOX News’ argument for discrimination in the immigration process.

Sullivan says Bill O’Reilly “simply asserts that gay binational couples are more likely to be fraudulent than straight couples. What evidence does he have for this? None. Gay immigration advocates back exactly the same standards of proof and evidence of serious relationships for gay couples as straight ones. And most fraudulent would-be immigrants are far more reluctant to self-identify as gay than as straight. For good measure, some binational gay couples are also legally married in America, in Massachusetts. But their/my marriage license is regarded as toilet paper by the federal government. You can see the brick wall that Rachel Tiven’s arguments receive from O’Reilly. That brick wall is called homophobia, an assumption that gay relationships are worth less and mean less than straight ones. It’s so deep I doubt O’Reilly is even aware of it.”

Author describes being raised by a gay man

By

Her dad came out to her when she was 5-years-old, and she’s been surrounded by gay people her entire life. Now she shares her unique view of the world with others in books, television appearances, and speaking engagements.

The author of Families Like Mine discusses shame and pride of gay families in this 17-minute video produced by the Human Rights Campaign.