Living in a Post-DOMA World

NCLR.org, June 26, 2013

The Supreme Court victory on June 26, 2013  in United States v. Windsor striking down the discriminatory federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) affirms that all loving and committed couples who are married deserve equal legal respect and treatment from the federal government. The demise of DOMA marks a turning point in how the United States government treats the relationships of married same-sex couples for federal programs that are linked to being married. At the same time, a turning point is part of a longer journey, not the end of the road. There is much work ahead before same-sex couples living across the nation can enjoy all the same protections as their different-sex counterparts.

LGBT organizations have developed fact sheets on what the decision means for you.

Click here to read the fact sheets.

in Legal / Legislation / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

HuffingtonPost.com, June 20, 2013

Exodus International, a large Christian ministry that claimed to offer a “cure” for homosexuality, plans to shut down.

In a press release posted on the ministry’s website Wednesday night, the board of directors announced the decision to close after nearly four decades.

“We’re not negating the ways God used Exodus to positively affect thousands of people, but a new generation of Christians is looking for change — and they want to be heard,” Exodus board member Tony Moore said.

The closure comes less than a day after Exodus released a statement apologizing to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community for years of undue judgment, by the organization and from the Christian Church as a whole.

“Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism. For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical,” said Alan Chambers, president of Exodus.

Click here to read the entire article.

in In the News / Parenting / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Study: Kids of Same-Sex Parents Happier, Healthier Than Average

by Jason St. Amand
National News Editor – Edgeonthenet.com
Thursday Jun 6, 2013

A new study found that children of same-sex parents are doing equally well, and in some areas, better than kids from heteronormative families. The results come from what is apparently the world’s largest study on the issue, the Australian newspaper the Age reports.

Researches from Melbourne University in Australia collected data on 500 children, up to the age of 17, across the country. Based on a number of key health and well-being indictors the study, called the “Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families,” found that children who are being raised by same-sex parents matched pretty equally when it came to self-esteem, emotional well-being and the amount of time they spent with parents.

When it came to overall health and family cohesion, however, the children of same-sex parents scored higher than the national average.

’’Because of the situation that same-sex families find themselves in, they are generally more willing to communicate and approach the issues that any child may face at school, like teasing or bullying,’’ lead researcher Dr. Simon Crouch said. ’’This fosters openness and means children tend to be more resilient. That would be our hypothesis.’’

LGBT couples are allowed to jointly adopt children in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Western Australia. In all states, except for South Australia, LGBT people are allowed to adopt individually. Regions, including Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria, Northern Territory and South Australia, do not allow same-sex couples to adopt.

Click here to read the entire article.

in Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

The Affordable Care Act and LGBT Families: Everything You Need to Know

By Heron Greenesmith, Andrew Cray, and Kellan Baker | May 23, 2013

Center For American Progress

President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ACA, into law on March 23, 2010. Many Americans have already benefited from the ACA, and millions more will benefit as the law fully comes into effect. By January 1, 2014, the law’s provisions will be underway, ensuring that millions of Americans will be able to afford the health care that they need.

This guide will help couples and parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, understand how the ACA benefits LGBT people and their families. The guide provides a basic overview of the Affordable Care Act, a review of how the act helps you and your family, and an explanation of how you and your family can access affordable health insurance.

Health Insurance Marketplaces

The Affordable Care Act established online Health Insurance Marketplaces, and starting January 1, 2014, each state will offer its own Marketplace system. Some Marketplaces will be run by the state itself, some through a partnership with the federal government, while others will be run by the federal government alone.

The Marketplaces will act as a one-stop shop for health insurance. Every American will be able to buy insurance directly through his or her Marketplace website, hotline, or physical office and receive assistance from unbiased consumer-assistance agents called “Navigators.”

An overview of the Affordable Care Act

The ACA requires nearly all Americans to have access to affordable health insurance starting in 2014. If you cannot get insurance for yourself or your family through your employer, you will be able to buy insurance through your state’s Health Insurance Marketplace.

Click here to read the entire article.

in Legal / Legislation / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Letting Go of a Baby, but Not the Emotions

By KERRI MACDONALD – New York Times – May 10, 2013

In the days after Liam Pursley was born in April, the woman who carried him for nine months barely saw him.

Liam spent most of his time with his mother and father, Jamie and Jacob Pursley. His surrogate mother, Kristen Broome, stayed in a separate hospital room, trying to navigate the swirl of emotions.

“I held him and cried,” Ms. Broome said of the first time she saw Liam, about an hour after he was born. “I cried because I realized he was not mine and I had zero connection. It was an amazing emotion. I did not hold him again until almost 36 hours later; I had zero urge to.”

That made reality easier.

In an essay she plans to publish soon on her blog, Ms. Broome, 24, writes: “I have been asked more times than I can count how I felt when I gave Liam away. My first response is always that I didn’t give Liam away; he was never mine to give.”

Click here to read the entire article.

in Parenting / Personal Stories / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

New Study: Americans Say Family Is Evolving and Same-Sex Parents Are Great

A full 87% say that the traditional family has evolved and they are okay with that.

BY Diane Anderson-Minshall – Advocate.com

May 08 2013

Turns out the the critics of Murphy Brown — who had a child out of wedlock on TV and got lambasted by then Vice President Dan Quayle for doing so — were right about one thing: TV does have an impact on how Americans view the concept of family. According to a new study by uSamp and Oxygen Media, a full 87% of Americans believe the definition of a traditional family has evolved and 55% say there is no longer such a thing as a “traditional” family. Society is apparently becoming increasingly more comfortable with how family is defined and judged, as well as changing gender roles in the new family dynamic.

The study finds that Diff’rent Strokes (a ’70s series in which a single white guy adopted two black kids) may have been ahead of its time; it and other shows like Modern Family and The New Normal and even the Oxygen series I’m Having Their Baby (which featured a young mother choosing a gay couple to adopt her child last season) reflect how Americans see the world now.

Oxygen commissioned the study to coincide with their first docu-short film, Untold Stories of Motherhood, director Marilyn Agrelo’s look at the new modern family and how they develop their remarkable bonds of love, from open adoption to same-sex parenting.

The study always revealed that 82% of people define a “mother” as the woman who raised them rather than as the woman who gave birth to them (which was at 53%).

Click here to read the entire article.

in Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

“Daddy, What’s a Sperm Donor?” This is the question I fear most

May 8, 2013 – BY MARK OPPENHEIMER, NewRepublic.com

Last week, on the day that Sports Illustrated posted NBA player Jason Collins’s essay announcing his homosexuality, I was walking with Rebekah, our six-year-old. We were going to pick up our car at the auto mechanic’s shop on the corner, when across the street I spotted a neighbor going in the other direction, strolling hand-in-hand with her two-year-old son. They waved to me, and I said hi, and then we walked on. “Who was that?” Rebekah asked.

I hesitated. I could have given a very simple answer: “That was Evelyn’s wife.” (Evelyn, as I’ll call her, is a woman Rebekah has met several times.) But I didn’t. I told her something else, something true but a little bit evasive, something like, “That was our neighbor Claire and her son—they live next door to the O’Malleys.”

 My three daughters all know that when they grow up, they can, if they so choose, marry women. They know this because they have schoolmates who have two moms; because my wife and I talk freely about our circle of friends, which includes gay men and lesbians; and because, when Rebekah comes home from school with first-grade talk of boyfriends, who “likes” whom, and whom she’ll marry someday—first grade is, it seems, junior high with training wheels—we occasionally mention that her future spouse could be a man or a woman. Even so, this moment on Jason Collins’s big day was not the first time that I found myself being slippery when a daughter had inquired about a lesbian mother, even in a context that had nothing to do with lesbianism.
in Anonymous/Known Donation / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

U.S. Says Study of Babies Failed to Disclose Risks

April 10, 2013
 New York Times

The lead investigators on a large study of the effects of oxygen levels on extremely premature babies failed to inform the infants’ parents that the risks of participating could involve increased chances of blindness or death, the federal Department of Health and Human Services has warned in a letter.

The Office for Human Research Protections, which safeguards the people who participate in government-funded research, sent a letter to the University of Alabama at Birmingham last month, detailing what it said were violations of patients’ rights.

The university, which was a lead site for the study, had not detailed the risks in consent forms that were the basis of parents’ participation, the office said in the letter. Specifically, babies assigned to a high-oxygen group were more likely to go blind and babies assigned to a low-oxygen group were more likely to die than if they had not participated. Ultimately, 130 babies out of 654 in the low-oxygen group died, and 91 babies out of 509 in the high-oxygen group developed blindness.

Some of the 1,300 infants who participated in the study, which took place between 2004 and 2009, would probably have died or developed blindness even if they had not taken part. They were born at just 24 to 27 weeks gestation, a very high-risk category. But being assigned to one or the other oxygen group in the study increased their chances further, a risk that was not properly disclosed, the office said

Click here to read the entire article.

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

The Child, the Tablet and the Developing Mind

By NICK BILTON – The New York Times,
March 31, 2013
 
I recently watched my sister perform an act of magic.

We were sitting in a restaurant, trying to have a conversation, but her children, 4-year-old Willow and 7-year-old Luca, would not stop fighting. The arguments — over a fork, or who had more water in a glass — were unrelenting.

Like a magician quieting a group of children by pulling a rabbit out of a hat, my sister reached into her purse and produced two shiny Apple iPads, handing one to each child. Suddenly, the two were quiet. Eerily so. They sat playing games and watching videos, and we continued with our conversation.

After our meal, as we stuffed the iPads back into their magic storage bag, my sister felt slightly guilty.

“I don’t want to give them the iPads at the dinner table, but if it keeps them occupied for an hour so we can eat in peace, and more importantly not disturb other people in the restaurant, I often just hand it over,” she told me. Then she asked: “Do you think it’s bad for them? I do worry that it is setting them up to think it’s O.K. to use electronics at the dinner table in the future.”

I did not have an answer, and although some people might have opinions, no one has a true scientific understanding of what the future might hold for a generation raised on portable screens.

“We really don’t know the full neurological effects of these technologies yet,” said Dr. Gary Small, director of the Longevity Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind.” “Children, like adults, vary quite a lot, and some are more sensitive than others to an abundance of screen time.”

But Dr. Small says we do know that the brain is highly sensitive to stimuli, like iPads and smartphone screens, and if people spend too much time with one technology, and less time interacting with people like parents at the dinner table, that could hinder the development of certain communications skills.

Click here to read the entire article.

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Science led to gay families: Law should follow

By Debora L. Spar. Special to CNN
Wed April 3, 2013

(CNN) — Of all the arguments swirling around the legality of same-sex marriage, it’s clear that a major concern is, as always, the kids.

Supporters argue that same-sex parents need to provide their children with a stable and supportive family home, complete with the legal protections afforded heterosexual married couples. Opponents claim that children raised by same-sex parents are wounded in some fundamental way by being denied the “normal” benefits of having both a mother and father at home.

What is lost, remarkably, in both these arguments is the science that enabled families headed by same-sex couples to exist at all.

Until recently, families had to consist, at least at the outset, of a mommy and a daddy, each biologically necessary to bring children into being. Even if the mother died in childbirth or the father disappeared shortly thereafter, the physiological basis of the nuclear family remained intact: one mother, one father, and a child conceived of their union.

Click here to read the entire article.

in In the News / Parenting / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments