No TV for Children Under 2, Doctors’ Group Urges

October 18, 2011
New York Times
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Watching television or videos is discouraged for babies younger than 2 because studies suggest it could harm their development, a pediatricians’ group said Tuesday.

Instead of allowing infants to watch videos or screens, parents should talk to them and encourage independent play, said the first guidelines on the subject issued in more than a decade by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The advice is the same as that issued in 1999 by the group, the country’s largest association of pediatricians, but this time it also warns parents that their own screen-watching habits may delay their children’s ability to talk.

“This updated policy statement provides further evidence that media — both foreground and background — have potentially negative effects and no known positive effects for children younger than 2 years,” it said. “Thus the A.A.P. reaffirms its recommendation to discourage media use in this age group.”

The latest guidelines do not refer to interactive play like video games on smartphones or other devices, but to programs watched passively on phones, computers, televisions or any other kind of screen.

Dr. Ari Brown, a pediatrician in Austin, Tex., who is a member of the academy, said the update was needed because of the explosion of DVDs meant for the under-2 age group, and because as many as 90 percent of parents acknowledge that their infants watch some sort of electronic media.

“Clearly, no one is listening to this message,” she said. “In this ubiquitous screen world, I think we need to find a way to manage it and make it a healthy media diet.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics urges pediatricians to discuss media use with new parents, and says adults should be aware of how distracted they become when the television is on.

“I like to call it secondhand TV,” said Dr. Brown, who is the lead author of the guidelines.

Studies cited in the guidelines say that parents interact less with children when the television is on, and that a young child at play will glance at the TV — if it is on, even in the background — three times a minute.

“When the TV is on, the parent is talking less,” Dr. Brown said. “There is some scientific evidence that shows that the less talk time a child has, the poorer their language development is.”

Though about 50 studies have been done in the past decade on media viewing by young children, none have followed heavy television watchers into later childhood or adulthood, so any long-term effects are not known. Heavy media use in a household is defined as one in which the television is on all or most of the time.

To read the complete article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/health/19babies.html?hp

in Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

For Children of Same-Sex Couples, a Student Aid Maze

October 14, 2011
New York Times
By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

It took five attempts for one prospective college student and her mother to fill out the 106-question federal form that would determine whether she would be eligible for financial aid. And that was not just because the form was frustratingly complicated. What tripped them up was the fact that the student had two legal mothers — and the form had room for only one.

Further confusing matters, her mothers had since split and married other women; they have six children among them. “It was so stressful and so frustrating to try to fit our family into those forms when so clearly it wasn’t going to fit,” said the student, who is now a senior at a university in Illinois and wanted to remain anonymous to keep her family’s financial affairs private. “You feel like you are lying no matter what you do.”

The aid form, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is the single most important document in determining how much and what type of financial aid students get. But the form, informally called Fafsa, has not kept up with the changing composition of families, in large part because the federal agency that issues it has to abide by the Defense of Marriage Act, which recognizes only heterosexual marriage. Because these students cannot fully portray their family’s finances, the amount of aid they receive may not fairly reflect their needs.

“In some cases, they are robbed of aid they would have otherwise received, and in other instances they benefit from it,” said Crosby Burns, special assistant for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress, a research organization that recently published a report about these issues in the financial aid process.

This is not solely an issue for children of same-sex parents. Any children with unusual family circumstances — whether their parent is in jail, involved in a messy divorce or simply refuses to provide support — can have trouble filling out the form. The form’s length and complexity is often a deterrent for would-be students with lower incomes, too. No numbers are available on the number of students from gay and lesbian families who are affected, though Gary Gates, a demographer with the Williams Institute, which studies sexual orientation law and policy issues, has calculated that about 220,000 children under age 18 are being raised by same-sex parents.

Though it is not immediately clear from the actual form, officials from the Department of Education, which issues it, said that applicants with two married mothers or fathers must fill out the Fafsa as if the couple were divorced. They must choose the legal parent who provides more support, which means that the other parent’s income and assets are often ignored. That can give the impression that the student requires more aid — or less — than one from an identical family headed by heterosexual parents. Applicants with same-sex partners, meanwhile, may not be able to include their spouses or other dependents on the form. Other gay students, who are now out on their own because their families have cut off support on learning about their sexual orientation, have difficulty establishing themselves as financially independent. (In some instances, however, colleges could choose to include more information provided by the student and include it in their calculations.)

“Since most other financial aid depends on the application for federal aid, these distortions will trickle down throughout the entire financial aid application process, even outside the federal government’s support,” Mr. Burns said.

The section of the financial aid form that asks for parental information has two lines: one for the applicant’s father/stepfather and another for mother/stepmother. The form also asks for the parents’ marital status, as well as the applicant’s marital status, using the federal definition.

“There is the stigma and indignity of having to list them as divorced, when they are, in fact, not,” said Emily Hecht-McGowan, director of public policy at the Family Equality Council, “It creates confusion and this extra step that children raised by L.G.B.T. parents have to go through,” she added referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.

An undergraduate at Harvard, meanwhile, said his challenge was trying to figure out how to get financial aid while excluding his parents. He said that when he was home during winter break in his sophomore year, he told his parents he could not change his sexual orientation. His parents promptly decided to cut off their financial contribution to his studies, he said, and asked him to leave the family home. (The student wanted to remain anonymous to protect his parent’s identities.) He scraped together the last of his savings to get a plane ticket back to Harvard, and his resident dean helped him find a place to stay for the remainder of the break.

But figuring out how to pay tuition was a bigger hurdle. Students under the age of 24 generally must have their parents fill out the Fafsa, unless they can persuade their institution to grant them independent status, which colleges have the power to do. But the Harvard student said that he was told that the university typically required students to take two years off to be deemed independent. “When I first heard this, I was mildly panicking,” he said. “I had no idea what I could do for two years or where I could do it.”

Ultimately, the university agreed to grant him independent status, as long as he took out about $10,000 in total loans, kept a part-time job, and visited a counselor (which made him uncomfortable, since his only experience with therapists was with those who tried to convince him that he could change his sexuality). He was also required to get a letter from his parents explaining why they cut off financial support — something he knew he could not possibly do.

Eventually, Harvard relented and told him it would not require him to get the letter and allowed him to continue his studies. But college officials did urge him to take short break to clear his head. “It was a pretty intense series of steps to get into this independent status,” he said. He is taking the current semester off, and will start his senior year in January. “I know if I had been at any other university, I would have had to drop out,” he said, since he had a support system that included his dean. Even so, “It was a pretty excruciating experience.”

To read the entire article, go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/your-money/for-children-of-same-sex-couples-a-student-aid-maze.html?hp

in Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same-sex couple denied high court review of adoption dispute

By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer
Tue October 11, 2011

Washington (CNN) — A same-sex couple has been turned away at the Supreme Court in a cross-state dispute to have both of them officially listed as the parents of an adopted 5-year-old boy.

The justices rejected the California couple’s appeal Tuesday without comment. The couple claims that Louisiana, where the child was born, has an unconstitutional policy against adoption by unmarried partners. The state used that policy to justify naming only one of them on an amended birth certificate.

The men, Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith, argue gay couples have a due process right to be listed on such certificates as joint custodial parents. A federal appeals court ruled against the couple earlier this year.

Some civil rights groups had urged a high court review, saying the case would have broader implications in the current legal fight in state and federal courts over same-sex marriage and whether states — and Washington, D.C. — must honor legal rights that gays and lesbians enjoy in other states.

The men, who live in San Diego, legally adopted a 1 year-old boy from Shreveport, Louisiana, in 2006. The adoption was finalized in New York state, where the couple was then residing.

In their appeal, spearheaded by the gay rights advocacy group Lambda Legal, the couple said it was important both practically and symbolically they both be listed as the legal parents.

“Obtaining an amended birth certificate that accurately identifies both parents of an adopted child is vitally important for multiple purposes, including determining the parents’ and child’s right to make medical decisions for other family members at the necessary moments; determining custody, care, and support of the child in the event of a separation or divorce between the parents,” the legal brief said.

Lawyers for the men also said it is vitally necessary for Social Security and tax purposes, inheritance, insurance, school registration, and obtaining a passport.

Adar and Smith tried to have the birth certificate changed in Louisiana. All states have laws creating a right to accurate, amended official birth and identity documents that would be recognized in other states and by the federal government.

Darlene Smith, Louisiana’s registrar of vital records and statistics, refused their request. She took the position that the term “adoptive parents” in the applicable section of state law applies only to married parents, because in Louisiana, only married couples may jointly adopt a child.

Louisiana state officials argued they did not refuse to recognize the New York adoption decree, and had offered to list one of the parents on the official amended birth certificate. But Adar and Smith insisted both of them should be named.

In a statement, Lambda Legal said it was disappointed in the court’s discretion to stay out of the dispute. “This decision leaves adopted children and their parents vulnerable in their interactions with officials from other states,” said Kenneth Upton, a senior staff attorney with the group.

“More particularly, this decision leaves a child without an accurate birth certificate listing both his parents,” Upton added. “This issue now moves into the legislative arena. We need to push for a change in Louisiana state policy in order to stabilize and standardize respect for parent-child relationships for all adoptive children.”

The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in April that Adar and Smith could not file a federal civil rights claim under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause. That refers to Article IV, Section 1, which says states must respect the “public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.”

The full 16-member court, in an 11-5 ruling, concluded the clause applies only to court actions, not those of state legislators or executive officials, and added that “there is no legal basis on which to conclude that failure to issue a revised birth certificate denies ‘recognition’ to the New York adoption decree.”

More importantly, the court said states have the power to make their own decisions about issuing birth certificates.

“Adoption is not a fundamental right,” said the appeals court, citing studies that found marriage provides a more stable environment in which to raise children.

“Louisiana has a legitimate interest in encouraging a stable and nurturing environment for the education and socialization of its adopted children. … Louisiana may rationally conclude that having parenthood focused on a married couple or single individual — not on the freely severable relationship of unmarried partners — furthers the interests of adopted children.”

Tuesday’s decision by the justices not to intervene is the final legal defeat for Adar and Smith on the certificate question, but does not affect their continuing custody of the boy.

in Adoption / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Anderson Cooper, Rodemeyer Parents Confront Bullies

Advocate.com by Diane Anderson-Minshall

October 4, 2011

On Monday’s special anti-bullying episode of Anderson Cooper, the talk show host spoke with Tracy and Timothy Rodemeyer, parents of Jamey Rodemeyer, a gay teen who took his own life only weeks ago after constant bullying became too much for him to bear. The heartbreaking episode was taped just nine days after Rodemeyer was found hanging from his swing set by his sister.

While photos of a cute and cherubic Rodemeyer flashed on screen, his mother solemnly told Cooper, “It is the same swing set that he was on since he was three years old. That we built special for them.”

Jamey’s sister, Alyssa, performed a tribute song she wrote for her brother. She courageously admits to her own bullying behavior, apologizes for her wrongs and shares how Jamey’s death has affected her.

Cooper introduced the Rodemeyers to the Jacobsens, another family mourning the loss of their son to suicide over bullying, in hopes that these families can support each other as they grieve. Cooper also spoke with a bullying survivor, Emily Carey, and her mother, Carla. And Dr. Dorothy Espelage offered up tips for parents and the community on what they can do to help prevent bullying, and how to tell if something is going on with a child.

in Parenting / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Gay Marriage Foe NOM Pours Water On Jared Polis Birth Announcement

By On Top Magazine Staff
Published: October 03, 2011

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) on Monday criticized Colorado Rep. Jared Polis’ announcement of his son Caspian Julius.

On Friday, Polis and his domestic partner, writer Marlon Reis, announced the birth of Caspian, making Polis, who is serving his second term in office, the first openly gay parent in Congress.

“Baby and parents are doing well, [and] baby has learned to cry already!” Polis and Reis said in an emailed birth announcement. “No gifts please, just nice thoughts for Caspian, humankind, the planet, and the universe!”

Caspian Julius weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces.

“We have no clue whether it was a planned motherless family or whether he and his partner stepped in to give a motherless child a family – since he will not say,” NOM wrote in a blog post titled Rep. Jared Polis Announces With Pride His Child Has No Mother.

“But he and his partner are proud to announce they were both ‘very excited to become new parents.’”

What Polis has not discussed is whether the child was adopted or conceived through a surrogate pregnancy.

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

CENSUS: California has more same-sex couples than other states

SDGLN.com Staff
September 29th, 2011

Editor’s note: These estimates include only couples where one partner is identified as being the spouse of the person who owns or rents the house.

SAN DIEGO – California leads the nation with the most same-sex couples, according to the 2010 Census.

The Golden State had 98,153 same-sex couples, followed by New York with 48,932, Florida with 48,496 and Texas with 46,401. North Dakota had the fewest same-sex couples with 559, just ahead of Wyoming with 657 and South Dakota with 714.

Among the nation’s largest cities with a population over 250,000, San Diego ranked No. 5 with 5,910 same-sex couples. Los Angeles was No. 1 with 13,292, followed by Chicago with 10,849, San Francisco with 10,461 and Seattle with 6,537.

The U.S. Census Bureau this week released revised estimates on same-sex married couple and unmarried partner households: There were 131,729 same-sex married couple households and 514,735 same-sex unmarried partner households in the United States.

The 2010 Census marked the first time the Census Bureau tracked information about same-sex spouses.

Gay groups react

Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, noted that the organization worked closely with the Census Bureau to document data on same-sex households.

“The data … represent another step in erasing the invisibility of our lives. No longer are our marriages rendered invisible in the snapshot of our country provided through the census. And no longer can anyone ignore the presence of our relationships all across the country,” Carey said.

“While this marks a huge step forward, it is not the end of the journey. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals still are not counted in the census or dozens of other surveys that are supposed to reflect the diversity of people in America. When LGBT people are not counted, we don’t ‘count’ when it comes to money for services, resources and programs.

“Census and other data are the basis for how the government spends billions of dollars each year. Without an accurate count, LGBT people are forced to go without funding for real, everyday services and remain virtually nonexistent in the eyes of our government. This is unacceptable. We continue to work with policymakers to ensure LGBT people are included in data collection on a broad spectrum of critical issues, including those involving our health, our families, our economic well-being, our safety and much more,” Carey said.

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, applauded the data.

“The Census Bureau’s most recent estimates of same-sex couples reiterate the need to end marriage discrimination once and for all. The number of gay and lesbian couples in committed, loving relationships, raising families together, continues to grow, leaving more and more families without the critical safety-net of marriage,” Wolfson said.

“These findings also confirm that those who most need the support marriage offers – particularly in these tough economic times – live in the places with the fewest protections. The South is home to more gay parents than any other region in the nation. And yet, these families are not only discriminated against by their home states, which exclude them from marriage and bar even lesser protections such as civil union and domestic partnership, but are also targeted for an additional layer of discrimination from the federal government under the so-called Defense of Marriage Act,” he said.

“When DOMA was stampeded into law back in 1996, no gay couples were married anywhere in the world; Congress was voting on a hypothetical. Now we have Census confirmed couples across the country who are harmed by this unconscionable law. In the United States, we don’t have second-class citizens, and we shouldn’t have second-class marriages. It’s time to follow the Golden Rule and the Constitution and end marriage discrimination once and for all.”

Census Bureau explains why it revised its numbers

The results of the 2010 Census revised estimates are closer to the results of the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) for same-sex married and unmarried partners. The 2010 ACS estimated same-sex married couples at 152,335 and same-sex unmarried partners at 440,989.

The new, preferred figures revise earlier estimates of same-sex unmarried partners released this summer from the 2010 Census Summary File 1 because Census Bureau staff discovered an inconsistency in the responses in the 2010 Census summary file statistics that artificially inflated the number of same-sex couples.

In addition, a breakdown of couples who reported as same-sex spouses is now available. The summary file counts originally showed that there were 349,377 married couple households and 552,620 same-sex unmarried partner households.

Statistics on same-sex couple households are derived from two questions on the census and ACS questionnaire: relationship to householder and the sex of each person. When data were captured for these two questions on the 2010 Census door-to-door form, the wrong box may have been checked for the sex of a small percentage of opposite-sex spouses and unmarried partners. Because the population of opposite-sex married couples is large and the population of same-sex married couples in particular is small, an error of this type artificially inflates the number of same-sex married partners.

New methodology implemented

After discovering the inconsistency, Census Bureau staff developed another set of estimates to provide a more accurate way to measure same-sex couple households. The revised figures were developed by using an index of names to re-estimate the number of same-sex married and unmarried partners by the sex commonly associated with the person’s first name.

“We understand how important it is for all groups to have accurate statistics that reflect who we are as a nation,” Census Bureau Director Robert Groves said. “As scientists, we noticed the inconsistency and developed the revised estimates to provide a more accurate portrait of the number of same-sex couples. We’re providing all three — the revised, original and ACS estimates — together to provide users with the full, transparent picture of our current measurement of same-sex couples.”

The 2010 Census preferred estimates have been peer-reviewed by Gary Gates, a demographer with the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, by Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and by Megan Sweeney, professor of sociology at UCLA. These experts concluded the methodology behind these revised estimates was sound.

All three sets of estimates are available at both the national and state levels and provide estimates of the presence of the couple’s own children. The 2010 Census revised estimates provide a 10-year benchmark, while the ACS estimates are useful for looking at a yearly time series.

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

In Study, Fatherhood Leads to Drop in Testosterone

September 12, 2011
New York Times
By PAM BELLUCK

This is probably not the news most fathers want to hear.

Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children — changing diapers, jiggling the boy or girl on his knee, reading “Goodnight Moon” for the umpteenth time — the lower his testosterone drops.

So says the first large study measuring testosterone in men when they were single and childless and several years after they had children. Experts say the research has implications for understanding the biology of fatherhood, hormone roles in men and even health issues like prostate cancer.

“The real take-home message,” said Peter Ellison, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard who was not involved in the study, is that “male parental care is important. It’s important enough that it’s actually shaped the physiology of men.”

“Unfortunately,” Dr. Ellison added, “I think American males have been brainwashed” to believe lower testosterone means that “maybe you’re a wimp, that it’s because you’re not really a man.

“My hope would be that this kind of research has an impact on the American male. It would make them realize that we’re meant to be active fathers and participate in the care of our offspring.”

The study, experts say, suggests that men’s bodies evolved hormonal systems that helped them commit to their families once children were born. It also suggests that men’s behavior can affect hormonal signals their bodies send, not just that hormones influence behavior. And, experts say, it underscores that mothers were meant to have child care help.

“This is part of the guy being invested in the marriage,” said Carol Worthman, an anthropologist at Emory University who also was not involved in the study. Lower testosterone, she said, is the father’s way of saying, “ ‘I’m here, I’m not looking around, I’m really toning things down so I can have good relationships.’ What’s great about this study is it lays it on the table that more is not always better. Faster, bigger, stronger — no, not always.”

Experts said the study was a significant contribution to hormone research because it tested men before and after becoming fathers and involved many participants: 600 men in the Cebu Province of the Philippines who are participating in a larger, well-respected health study following babies who were born in 1983 and 1984.

Testosterone was measured when the men were 21 and single, and again nearly five years later. Although testosterone naturally decreases with age, men who became fathers showed much greater declines, more than double that of the childless men.

And men who spent more than three hours a day caring for children — playing, feeding, bathing, toileting, reading or dressing them — had the lowest testosterone.

“It could almost be demonized, like, ‘Oh my God, fathers, don’t take care of your kids because your testosterone will drop way down,’ ” said Lee Gettler, an anthropologist at Northwestern University and co-author of the study, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “But this should be viewed as, ‘Oh it’s great, women aren’t the only ones biologically adapted to be parents.’

“Humans give birth to incredibly dependent infants. Historically, the idea that men were out clubbing large animals and women were staying behind with babies has been largely discredited. The only way mothers could have highly needy offspring every couple of years is if they were getting help.”

Smaller studies, measuring just snapshots in time, found fathers have lower testosterone, but they could not establish whether fatherhood brought testosterone down or lower-testosterone men were just more likely to become fathers.

In the new study, said Christopher Kuzawa, a co-author and Northwestern anthropologist, having higher testosterone to start with “actually predicted that they’re more likely to become fathers,” possibly because men with higher testosterone were more assertive in competing for women or appeared healthier and more attractive. But regardless of initial testosterone level, after having children, the hormone plummeted.

Scientists say this suggests a biological trade-off, with high testosterone helping secure a mate, but reduced testosterone better for sustaining family life.

“A dad with lower testosterone is maybe a little more sensitive to cues from his child, and maybe he’s a little less sensitive to cues from a woman he meets at a restaurant,” said Peter Gray, an anthropologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has conducted unrelated research on testosterone in fathers.

The study did not examine specific effects on men’s behavior, like whether those with smaller drops in testosterone were more likely to be neglectful or aggressive. It also did not examine the roles played by other hormones or whether factors like stress or sleeplessness contributed to a decline in testosterone.

Other studies have suggested, though not as definitively, that behavior and relationships affect testosterone levels. A study of Air Force veterans showed that testosterone climbed back up after men were divorced. A study of Harvard Business School students found that those in committed romantic relationships had lower testosterone than those who were not. Another study found that fathers in a Tanzanian group known for involved parenting had low testosterone, while those from a neighboring culture without active fathering did not.

Similar results have been found in birds and in mammals like marmosets, said Toni Ziegler, a senior scientist at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

Experts say the new testosterone study could offer insight into men’s medical conditions, particularly prostate cancer. Higher lifetime testosterone levels increase the risk of prostate cancer, just as higher estrogen exposure increases breast cancer risk.

“Fathers who spend a lot of time in fathering roles might have lower long-term exposure to testosterone,” reducing their risk, Dr. Ellison said.

Many questions remain. Does testosterone, which appeared to decline most steeply in fathers during their child’s first month, rebound as children become older and less dependent? How often do levels fluctuate?

To read the complete article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/health/research/13testosterone.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fnational%2Findex.jsonp

in Parenting / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

New Numbers, and Geography, for Gay Couples

By SABRINA TAVERNISE – New York Times – August 25, 2011

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — So much for San Francisco.

The list of top cities for same-sex couples as a portion of the population does not include that traditional gay mecca, according to new census data. In fact, the city, which ranked third in 1990 and 11th in 2000, plummeted to No. 28 in 2010. And West Hollywood, once No. 1, has dropped out of the top five.

The Census Bureau data, finalized this week and analyzed by Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, gives the clearest picture to date of same-sex couples in America. In absolute numbers, they jumped by half in the past decade, to 901,997.

Most surprising is how far same-sex couples have dispersed, moving from traditional enclaves and safe havens into farther-flung areas of the country.

Consider, for example, the upstarts on the list: Pleasant Ridge, Mich., a suburb of Detroit; New Hope, Pa.; and this beach town in southern Delaware. All three have been popular destinations for gay people locally but had never ranked in the top 10.

The No. 1-ranked town is Provincetown, Mass., at the tip of Cape Cod.

The reordering reflects a growing influence of baby boomers, who became adults in the 1960s and 1970s, when the social stigma was starting to ease, and are more willing than previous generations to stand up and be counted, Mr. Gates said.

Now that generation, arguably the first in history with such a large contingent that is out, is beginning to retire, and its life transition is showing up in the data, with older cities as the new popular choices.

“As the baby boomer generation ages into retirement,” Mr. Gates said, “we see its impact really strongly in the geography.”

The pattern was in evidence in Rehoboth Beach, a family resort town of 1,300, which was fourth on the list of same-sex couples per capita and did not figure in the top 10 rankings in 1990 or 2000.

“The change was pretty dramatic,” said Rick McReynolds, 58, a resident. “It used to be all these boys,” but now, he said, the gay population in town is older and has less of a singles scene.

But people who used to party here, like Bob Moore, a retired communications professor from Pennsylvania, have since returned with their partners to live. Mr. Moore, who came out in his 40s, after two children and a divorce, said he and his partner were looking for a place that was gay friendly, but not an exclusive enclave.

“We liked the fact that it was gay without being the Castro” neighborhood of San Francisco, said Mr. Moore, 59, who was sitting with his partner, Steve Ortleib, in Rigby’s Bar and Grill on Tuesday night.

He said they had visited four top retirement destinations for same-sex couples — two in California and two in Florida — before settling on Rehoboth.

In interviews in San Francisco on Tuesday, several gay people said the city attracted people who did not always want to become part of a couple. The census does not ask about sexual orientation.

“You settle down in small towns because there is not much to choose from,” said Nick Meinzer, 41, a hairstylist who works on Castro Street. “In urban areas we wait longer to settle down. I’ve been single for two years. They’re not counting those of us who are single.”

Of the top cities like Pleasant Ridge, Mr. Meinzer said: “I’ve never even heard of those places. You’d think if they were so great you’d have heard of them.”

Dennis Ziebell, 61, the owner of Orphan Andy’s, a Castro neighborhood diner he opened 35 years ago, said he did not believe the count was accurate. “Take another survey, that’s all I can say,” he said. “I’ve been in a relationship for 36 years and nobody from the census asked me about it.”

Last year was the third time the Census Bureau counted same-sex couples. The count included people of the same sex in the same household who said they were spouses or unmarried partners (spouses were not included in 1990). Mr. Gates calculated how many same-sex couples there were for every 1,000 households within towns and cities across the country.

New York is too big to figure prominently in top city rankings for same-sex couples per capita (it was 67th in 2010, Mr. Gates said), but it does rank by county, alongside more the more traditional locations. Manhattan is No. 5, after San Francisco County, Hampshire County, Mass., Monroe County, Fla., and Multnomah County, Ore.

The city ranking is a barometer of the changing demographics among the population of same sex couples, which has grown more diffuse throughout the country over the past 20 years.

In interviews here this week, several couples said that social attitudes had softened overt time and that living farther afield was now easier to do. Mr. Gates compared the phenomenon to immigrants who no longer sought the safety of an enclave.

Steve Elkins, who runs a nonprofit community center called Camp Rehoboth, which acts as a liaison with the gay community, said cultural training classes for the summer police force would be met by stony stares in the early days. More recently, when he asked the police officers if they knew a gay person, two people in the class raised their hands to say they were gay.

“It’s a generational change in thoughts and attitudes,” he said. Rehoboth, he likes to say, used to be an island of tolerance in a sea of homophobia, and now is an island of tolerance in a sea of outlet malls.

Further evidence, Mr. Elkins said, was the quick passage of a civil unions bill that is set to take effect in Delaware on Jan. 1.

TO READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE, GO TO: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/us/25census.html

in Adoption / IVF / Parenting / Second Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

North Jersey sees 30% growth in same-sex couples

Sunday, August 14, 2011    Last updated: Sunday August 14, 2011, 5:24 PM

BY HARVY LIPMAN AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITERS
The Record

By the 2000s, though, they had noticed a dramatic rise in the number of gay couples living in the suburbs, a trend confirmed by new census numbers released last week.

According to those figures, culled from the 2010 census, the number of households in North Jersey headed by same-sex partners grew by 30 percent in the past decade. 

By the numbers

The number of same-sex couples rose in most North Jersey municipalities last decade.

Bergen County  2000  2010
Allendale 1 17
Alpine 8 4
Bergenfield 51 62
Carlstadt 11 14
Cliffside Park 72 56
Closter 10 15
Cresskill 5 7
Demarest 4 8
Dumont 20 25
East Rutherford 27 19
Edgewater 32 38
Elmwood Park 33 49
Emerson 14 17
Englewood 63 73
Englewood Cliffs 3 10
Fair Lawn 49 64
Fairview 34 35
Fort Lee 65 127
Franklin Lakes 14 28
Garfield 51 68
Glen Rock 15 20
Hackensack 112 145
Harrington Park 6 34
Hasbrouck Heights 19 9
Haworth 3 4
Hillsdale 19 23
Ho-Ho-Kus 8 8
Leonia 17 35
Little Ferry 24 27
Lodi 44 64
Lyndhurst 35 58
Mahwah 27 49
Maywood 24 32
Midland Park 6 8
Montvale 8 10
Moonachie 4 4
New Milford 16 37
North Arlington 28 39
Northvale 6 9
Norwood 6 7
Oakland 18 21
Old Tappan  6 8
Oradell 13 14
Palisades Park 37 41
Paramus 17 35
Park Ridge 7 11
Ramsey 20 20
Ridgefield 24 31
Ridgefield Park 21 34
Ridgewood 22 38
River Edge 24 19
River Vale 9 23
Rochelle Park 12 14
Rockleigh 0 0
Rutherford 48 65
Saddle Brook 15 40
Saddle River 6 7
South Hackensack 4 5
Teaneck 80 126
Tenafly 11 18
Teterboro 0 0
Upper Saddle River 12 13
Waldwick 10 16
Wallington 30 25
Washington Township 10 27
Westwood 19 21
Woodcliff Lake 1 5
Wood-Ridge 10 20
Wyckoff 17 24
     
Passaic County 2000 2010
Bloomingdale 14 23
Clifton 132 243
Haledon 13 20
Hawthorne 32 48
Little Falls 33 42
North Haledon 10 24
Passaic 142 107
Paterson 349 290
Pompton Lakes 15 29
Prospect Park 11  8
Ringwood 26 37
Totowa 13 25
Wanaque 22 20
Wayne 75 105
West Milford 58 63
West Paterson 20 32
Staff analysis by Dave Sheingold> 

Interactive map

Click here for other census results. 

And a substantial portion of those couples are raising children, like the Galluccios of North Haledon. Nearly one-fourth of North Jersey households headed by male partners and almost a third of female couples have related children living in their homes. 

“At the end of the ’90s and 2000s, there was a whole big push toward having children and it was very public, so the concept of gay couples having children was a natural progression,” said Michael Galluccio, who serves as a member of the school board at Manchester Regional High School. “It was the first time that there was an acknowledgment that we could be not only couples but families with children.” 

Same-sex partner households still represent a small portion of Bergen and Passaic county residents: just one in 160 households in Bergen County and one in 149 in Passaic County – or a total of 3,216 households in the two counties. 

Across New Jersey, one in 133 households is headed by same-sex unmarried partners. 

Steven Goldstein, the head of the leading statewide advocacy group for the gay and lesbian community, said that he too has seen a big increase in the number of same-sex couples living in the suburbs of New Jersey. 

“As we’ve gotten more rights, we’ve become more mainstream and been looking to move to the suburbs,” said Goldstein, who serves as chairman of Garden State Equality. “My partner and I did not want to continue to live in an 800-square-foot studio apartment in Manhattan with a bike taking up half the space for $1 million, so we looked to the suburbs. New Jersey is the ultimate suburban state. 

“What the census is really saying is that we same-sex couples can be as fabulously boring as everybody else,” said Goldstein, of Teaneck. “We complain about the parking in Garden State Plaza, we bitch about taxes and worry about getting a quality education for our kids.” 

Census may be low

 

The jump in the number of gay couples is just one piece of a broader change in the makeup of North Jersey families, with more households headed by single parents and an increase in the number of adult children living with their parents. 

Goldstein thinks the census figures fall short of the actual number of same-sex couples in New Jersey. 

“The census is an undercount,” he said. “For instance, Garden State Equality’s members include more same-sex couples in Asbury Park than the number reported by the 2010 census.” 

Goldstein said the problem lies in the way the census determines whether people are living as same-sex couples, which is by having the head of a household pick from a list of checkboxes to describe the relationships of each person living there. “Unmarried partner” is one of the choices, along with options like “other relative,” “husband/ wife,” “housemate” and “other non-relative.” 

“The census still doesn’t ask the question right out: Are you a same-sex couple?” he noted. 

Goldstein said he wondered whether the growth in New Jersey’s same-sex partner households will continue, given the passage of New York’s gay marriage act this year; New Jersey has yet to adopt such a law. 

“With New York having passed us on marriage equality, it will be interesting to see if the trend still holds true,” he said. 

The census’ data on the number of same-sex partner households with related children represent the first time the bureau has compiled that information. More than 900 same-sex couples in North Jersey reported having children living in their homes. 

Michael Patrick and Randy Dixon of Franklin Lakes are among them. The couple have lived in New Jersey for 11 years and have two adopted children: 9-year-old daughter Blake and 5-year-old son Gardner. 

“One of the reasons we moved to New Jersey was that at that stage it was one of the few states where you could adopt a child as a same-sex couple,” said Dixon. 

For that, they can thank the Galluccios. The couple, who lived in Maywood at the time, won a landmark case in 1997 when Bergen County Superior Court Judge Sybil R. Moses ruled that they could jointly adopt their foster son. 

The couple lived in California for several years, being married there, before they moved back to New Jersey in 2008. 

Jon Galluccio said that for the most part living in New Jersey has been a positive experience for the couple and their three children. 

“I would say it’s been 90 percent a great experience, maybe 95 percent,” he said. “That 5 percent is just the general crap that people have to deal with. With another family, it could be because they are Italian on an Irish block. For us, it’s because we are a gay couple.” 

Patrick and Dixon said they worried at first about what sort of reception their daughter would get in school. When Blake was small, they enrolled her in a private Montessori school. 

“As she got older, we finally decided that the Franklin Lakes schools have a great reputation, so we decided to put her in public school,” Dixon added. “We were pleasantly surprised to find there were no issues. Our daughter and son have play dates with other kids, our daughter’s friends come for sleepovers.” 

Living in an upscale, well-educated community helps, he acknowledged. “A lot of our neighbors work in the city and they know gay people. It’s not a big deal to them.” 

Nevertheless, the couple said they feel some pressure to be the best parents possible.

“One of the things that happens as gay parents is you feel you have to make sure you’re doing the best job and your children never are in any trouble,” Patrick said. “God forbid something should happen and people say, ‘It’s the gay parents.’ ”

Melissa B. Brisman, a Montvale attorney whose firm specializes in helping clients deal with reproductive legal issues, said she handles more than 50 adoptions annually for gay and lesbian couples. Another 75 or so homosexual couples a year hire her firm to help them have children through surrogate mothers.

Brisman estimated that gay and lesbian couples account for about a quarter of her clients.

“I own a surrogacy agency and we get a ton of gay men coming to surrogates to bear children,” Brisman said. The number of gay men using surrogate mothers to give birth is on the rise for a number of reasons, she added.

“One is just that surrogacy is more readily available and acceptable,” Brisman said. She pointed out that several gay celebrities, including Elton John, Neil Patrick Harris and Ricky Martin, have publicly discussed having their children through surrogate mothers.

“The science is also better,” Brisman added. “Where once the odds of success were around 10 percent, now they’re around 80 percent.”

For many female couples, in-vitro fertilization using donor sperm is the path to having children, noted Dr. Serena H. Chen, director of reproductive medicine at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas Health in Livingston.

“I would say maybe 5 percent of our clients are lesbian couples,” Chen said. “It’s something we see on a regular basis, and it’s not something anybody blinks an eye at.”

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

The time I had two mommies: Being raised by a gay couple was hard in the 80s & 90s

 Daily News

By Matt Borden Thursday, July 28th 2011

You might think it strange that, as a straight man, I shed tears of joy when I learned that same-sex marriage was coming to New York. Even I was taken aback by my own reaction, because for me and my wife, life won’t be much different. However, as one of the millions of people who were raised, or partially raised, by a gay couple, I felt indescribable relief knowing that the stigmatization I experienced as a child will (hopefully) not be an issue for future generations.

I am a child of famously liberal Manhattan, but growing up in the ’80s and ’90s with a gay mother was not easy. For all of New York’s diversity, it was still a homophobic place. Gay people were tolerated only as long as they lived a marginalized Greenwich Village existence. Gay bashing on Saturday nights was such a frequent occurrence that a militant advocacy group called the Pink Panthers walked around the West Village wearing shirts that said “Bash Back” to those at risk. Gay families weren’t welcome at PTA meetings or soccer games.

Of course, no friends of mine had parents who were gay – everyone knew that gay people didn’t have children. They couldn’t even adopt in New York State until 2002. So what did that make me? Legally, at least, I didn’t exist.

When my mother began her relationship with another woman in 1988, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell were still kissing men in movies, and Mariel Hemingway was but a twinkle in Roseanne’s eye. The seeming normalcy of “Will and Grace” was still a decade away. George Michael, now openly gay, was a heartthrob for teenage girls.

Soon after they started dating, my mom partner’s moved in with us, and although we never talked about what was happening, I knew that my family was different. My father lived across town, and even though he had joint custody and I saw him every other day, I never told him about my mom, fearing that the government would find out and deem her an unfit parent.

I kept the relationship secret from my friends, too. When my mom and her partner held hands in public, I cringed in discomfort and made them promise not to do it in front of me. I feel embarrassed to admit it now, but when people came over to my house and my mom’s partner was present, she always had to pretend to be a roommate or a friend – I didn’t care what, really, but the truth had to be concealed at all costs. I even refused to go to their commitment ceremony at a Chinese restaurant in the West Village when I was 13 because it just felt too weird.

That’s the funny thing about social mores: They exert their unseen influence whether you’re aware of it or not. My mother’s happiness shouldn’t have been a burden to me, but it was. And I wasn’t alone in feeling this way. As Danielle Silber, New York chapter president of Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere, has said, “In middle school, because of pervasive homophobia and taunting, I didn’t tell any of my new friends in school about my family.” This stigmatization by proxy put a generation of people just like me in the closet, bearing the burden of our parents’ choices in a homophobic society.

I reluctantly “came out” about my mother’s relationship when I was 18, but only because I had developed an ulcer from keeping my life a secret, popping Tums like they were Tic Tacs. And even then, I told only those closest to me, including my father, who, in an interesting twist, informed me that he had figured the situation out years before.

Fortunately, my friends and family were supportive – and over time the shame I used to feel has completely disappeared. Now, I’m not concerned about the gender of the person my mom is with, only their shared happiness. That has as much to do with society’s progression as it does with my own personal journey.

Future sons and daughters of gay families will surely have struggles of their own. Just as the passage of civil rights legislation did not end racism, the passage of marriage equality will not end homophobia. However, victories like marriage equality will shape new attitudes and help move us toward becoming a society that prevents a new generation of children from having to face the same burdens that I faced.

I know that, right now, there is a kid somewhere with two moms or two dads who will one day soon be able to go to school and proudly announce, “My parents got married this weekend!” and no one will have anything to offer but congratulations. And that thought alone gives me hope for the future.

in Family Stories / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments