Join Us for Summer Love Tonight!

If you’re in Austin (or can make it here quickly), we’re throwing a fun event with our friends at Soulforce called Summer Love. If you can’t make it, but want to help us fight the good fight for LGBT equality, please consider buying a ticket online, as we have a generous donor who will match donations made this week, up to $3,000. Just click on the Summer Love link in this paragraph to be magically transported to the event page (and the donate button).

And if you’re in town, we hope you can join us!

DOMA Enters the Sotomayor Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

Certainly, it was to be expected. With the Defense of Marriage Act one of the more high-profile and controversial matters the Supreme Court might be enlisted to rule on, it’s no surprise that DOMA entered Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, via a question from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) yesterday. Metro Weekly offers a transcript and video of the exchange.

As Hillary Sorin noted in her San Francisco Chronicle politics blog last week, the cracks in DOMA are widening, in part due to Massachusetts’s bold decision to sue the United States over DOMA. Whether or not this will expose DOMA as unconstitutional remains to be seen, but a number of legal and political observers in the media, including Wall Street Journal Law Blog and Politico’s Ben Smith, are taking notice and are intrigued by the possibilities. Those on both side of the issue seem aware of the possibility that a confirmed Justice Sotomayor might be one of nine people with a critical role in determining DOMA’s fate in the not-so-distant future.

Truth to Power: Children of LGBT Parents Coming Out

At Atticus Circle, one of our priorities is fighting for the family rights of LGBT people, including their right to have and raise children. Public dialogue regarding marriage equality tends to ignore the fact that many LGBT couples already have children, and that the lack of equal rights for LGBT parents leads to direct discrimination for their children as well. Furthermore, we live in a culture where LGBT parents are discouraged from having children at all. At least six states currently ban adoptions by gays and lesbians.

Why is this? What do people fear will result from gay parenting? There are many who believe that LGBT families will somehow result in sexually confused children, that gay parents will “make” their children gay. Some believe that children will have a natural desire for one mom and one dad; their flawed logic leading them to ban LGBT adoption of children so that said children do not suffer. And then there’s the ubiquitous, and extremely untrue, argument that LGBT parents are more likely to sexually abuse their children than straight parents. All of these arguments are backed by flawed logic, not reality, and are simply smokescreens to allow active discrimination against LGBT families. The CNN web site has come out with a great article, here, regarding the children of LGBT parents, a few of whom are now beginning to speak out about their experiences and are also seeking each other out.

First of all, LGBT parents do not somehow “turn” their children gay any more than straight parents can make their children straight. The American Psychological Association confirms that many studies show “most kids of same-sex households describe themselves as heterosexual in roughly the same proportion as conventional families.” Will children naturally desire parents of both sexes, and will it harm them if they don’t have that? No and no. Not according to the people raised by LGBT parents in the above article. It’s our culture that’s the problem, not nature. There are many healthy, well-adjusted children of single-parent households who prove we don’t necessarily need a father and mother to be well loved and cared for. LGBT parents are equally capable of providing the love and stability that children need as straight parents are, or as single parents are.

It is important that we fight these many ugly untruths by speaking out and letting people get to know us. These now-grown children are doing it, and we must do it as well. If you are an ally who knows a family headed by LGBT parents and you hear others spouting these kinds of arguments, speak out. If you are the child of LGBT parents, you can share your experiences with others. Once people see our families, it will become harder to contradict the love that is so obviously before them.

How We Celebrated the Stonewall 40th: Our Day At Cornerstone Church

We’re pleased to report that our first Sundays of Solidarity action, in partnership with our friends at Soulforce, was a success!  Yesterday, a delegation of our straight and LGBTQ supporters attended Cornerstone Church in San Antonio — one of the largest single congregations in Texas — and embarked on a series of necessary conversations between our delegation and Cornerstone members.

While the delegation meet with Cornerstone members, Jeff Lutes (Soulforce’s Executive Director) and Jodie Eldridge (Atticus Circle’s Executive Director) met privately with Rev. John Hagee and some of his family members.  The goal of the meeting was to reach a place of new understanding and to help churches, like Cornerstone, to understand the real consequences of their anti-gay rhetoric and how it affects the LGBT community.

Pastor John Hagee agreed to explore the possibility of ongoing conversations with us beyond the one initiated yesterday. Based on reports from our delegation members, we connected with Cornerstone members in the true spirit of Sundays of Solidarity. We looked for common ground while letting them know why LGBT equality is so important to us.

Coverage from the event included this San Antonio Express-News article, looking at both parties’ views on how the conversations went; this WOAI-AM article, which called the meeting “historic,” and this Austin American-Statesman article from Saturday, previewing the meeting.

While we’re anxious to see how today’s meeting between President Obama and LGBT leaders go, and as we continue to monitor legislative and judicial developments around same-sex marriage rights and other fundamental rights, we’re hopeful that the example we set Sunday will help everyone realize the conversations that are possible and necessary around LGBT rights.

72 Hours Away from Our Meeting With Rev. Hagee

As we write this, we’re a mere 72 hours away from a day meeting Rev. John Hagee and the Cornerstone Church congregation. As you likely know by now, it’s our launch event for our Sundays of Solidarity project – launching, appropriately enough, on the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

We’re asking our friends in Atticus Circle and Soulforce to visit faith communities around the nation. The program encourages groups of LGBT people and their allies to train in nonviolent direct action and communication with members of religious congregations who do not yet welcome LGBT worshipers.

When we let Rev. Hagee know we would be visiting his congregation several weeks ago, we made a request to meet with him personally to find what common ground we shared, as well as to talk about our concerns.

His agreeing to meet with us is an encouraging first step in engaging with one of Texas’s single-largest faith communities. We are hopeful that we will have open, productive conversations with congregation members about the importance of LGBT equality. Those of us wearing “Gay? Fine By Me” buttons will peaceably elaborate on the significance of those words – that we are inclusive rather than exclusive, that we support equal rights for everyone, that we refuse to stand silently in a society that doesn’t allow all couples to marry, and then awards a separate set of rights to married couples and their children.

Those of us wanting to join us, it’s not too late! We ask you visit the SOS site, register, and meet us for the mandatory nonviolence training at 9 a.m. Sunday.

If you’re looking to do a Sundays of Solidarity action in your community, you may want to start with the Fine by Me SOS page, which has everything necessary to identify yourself as LGBT equality supporters.

And, of course, watch this space for updates on what happens this Sunday.

Domestic Partner Benefits: A Critical Part of Our Fight

You may have run across yesterday’s news accounts, such as this one in the Washington Post, about President Obama’s decision to award some domestic partner benefits to federal employees. You also may have read accounts, such as this Reuters release of a Politico story, that detail continued criticisms of Obama for not doing more to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

Here in Texas, we’ve been working on this issue with a coalition of state university workers who want to secure domestic partner benefits for university employees. The term accurately describing what we’re seeking is “competitive insurance benefits.” In other words, if we don’t secure the same sorts of insurance benefits that more progressive university systems have arrived at, we risk losing talented LGBT members of university faculties and staffs to schools in other states.

President Obama, to be fair, is attempting to address the concerns that LGBT federal employees. Because health care is tied so closely to employment in our current system, LGBT workers with families to support must factor in employers’ views on health care for domestic partners when looking for work or deciding to stay with a particular employer. Married couples don’t have to take those same sort of factors into account, because federal law protects them. Under the current system — a system with includes the Defense of Marriage Act and its limitations on same-sex partners, even those who are legally married in the handful of states currently allowing and recognizing those marriages — there is a separate and unequal system in place that ultimately impacts many families. Certainly, that double standard is as unacceptable as any other form of discrimination — be it based on gender, race, or sexual orientation.

An Editorial Worth Reading

From today’s New York Times, an excellent editorial (alerted to us from Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry), with disheartening news about how President Obama may actually be working against the LGBT equality movement.

It’s heartening to see supportive editorials from the likes of the New York Times’ editorial board, as we work in our continued efforts to secure basic rights for our LGBT friends, neighbors, and family members. This year has brought with it a remarkable set of victories and setbacks around the issue of same-sex marriage, leading us to believe that we are in a milestone year for this particular issue. The more attention called to the issue, the more likely we are to ask the fundamental questions at the heart of this debate.

As our founder Anne Wynne wrote last month, in response to the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8:

“I know a number of the couples who were married in California last year. They weren’t getting married as a way to subvert or mock marriage – they were getting married for the very reasons my husband and I got married. They wanted to declare their love and commitment to one another, whether in the presence of just an officiant or in front of family and friends. They were thinking about being parents, and gaining the legal rights and provisions that will help them be more effective parents. They were thinking about taking care of one another as a family.

Preventing same-sex couples from marrying doesn’t prevent these couples from raising children, forming family bonds, or from relying on each other’s emotional as well as financial support. Instead, measures like Proposition 8 merely create obstacles for a growing number of families.”

Unfortunately, the Defense of Marriage Act is ultimately creating the same sorts of obstacles. The issues raised in this editorial should be of concern to anyone who put faith in President Obama to champion necessary changes in laws pertaining to same-sex marriage.

Supreme Court Challenge to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Denied, and What it Means

You may have heard the news yesterday that the Supreme Court has turned down a challenge to the U.S. military’s troubling Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. This excellent Washington Post article analyzes the possible politics behind the move. While the article hints that President Obama may eventually replace the policy with a policy that would be more fair to our LGBT military personnel, that change now seems farther away than we’d like it to be.

Here are some talking points worth sharing, should you find yourself in a debate about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

* A July 2008 poll by The Washington Post/ABC News found that 75 percent of Americans favor allowing gays to serve openly in the military – up from just 44 percent in 1993.
* The poll found 64 percent of Republicans in favor of repeal. A 2006 Zogby poll found that 73 percent of military personnel are comfortable with lesbians and gays.
* The military has discharged almost 800 mission-critical troops — and at least 59 Arabic and nine Farsi linguists — under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the last five years.
* Most allied forces working alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq allow individuals to serve openly regardless of sexual orientation. Studies of the militaries of Australia, Israel, Great Britain and Canada have shown open service to have no effect on enrollment or retention.
* The total number of countries allowing openly gay service is 26. The US and Turkey are the only two original NATO countries that still have bans in place.

In this critical moment in history, with the United States engaged in two wars, it’s imperative for the military to have the best and brightest personnel available. Sexual orientation shouldn’t figure into the equation, and yet our military maintains an antiquated set of standards to “deal with a problem” that a growing majority of military members don’t see as a problem.

We believe that LGBT military members should be allowed to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being discharged. There’s currently proposed legislation — the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (MREA), proposed by Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California, and co-sponsored nearly 150 fellow members of Congress. We encourage you to write to your Representative, and Senators, as well as to President Obama, to urge passage of the MREA and a much-needed resolution to the inadequacy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

To echo the plea that Second Lieutenant Sandy Tsao, a member of our military who was dishonorably discharged after coming out to her superiors as gay, made to President Obama, “help us to win the war against prejudice so that future generations will continue to work together and fight for our freedoms regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation.”

Same-Sex Marriage Map

Another reason to love NPR: an excellent state-by-state map covering same-sex marriage rights, bans, and current legislation or court cases which may change the status in that state.

A Victory in New Hampshire, and a Victory (Of Sorts) in Nevada

This just in! After a disappointing, recent hiccup in the conversation over same-sex marriage in New Hampshire, the state legislature has passed a bill that will legalize same-sex marriage and address the earlier concerns of Gov. John Lynch.

According to the article, Lynch “had promised a veto if the law didn’t clearly spell out that churches and religious groups would not be forced to officiate at gay marriages or provide other services.” The revised version of the bill has addressed those concerns, and once Lynch signs it later today, will make New Hampshire the sixth state allowing gay marriage.

There’s also mildly good news out of Nevada this week — you may have heard by now that Nevada has a new domestic partnership law, by a 2/3 majority, which was necessary in order to override the veto from Gov. Jim Gibbons.

According to the article, “The move makes Nevada the 17th state to recognize the relationships of gay men and lesbians, creating the registry with the secretary of state by which couples receive legal protections associated with marriage.”

While this is a step in the right direction, the new law doesn’t require employers to provide health benefits to domestic partners of employees — which, to us, is one of the most fundamental rights that comes with marriage.

However, as as this excellent Reno Gazette-Journal article details, this law clears the way for same-sex couples to legally adopt children, and even spells out child support requirements if the couple splits up.

Ultimately, though, even with its flaws, the Nevada law is a step in the right direction, and New Hampshire’s good news most certainly is.