LGBT candidates make history on Election Night This week's round of elections proved to be a landmark for LGBT candidates. At least 62 won races for municipal and state office on Tuesday, with some outcomes still to be determined. "This has been the most successful nonfederal election year in the Victory Fund's history," said Chuck Wolfe, the group's president and CEO. "More candidates were endorsed and more candidates won than ever before. But just as important is where they won. Some of these are true breakthrough victories that have the potential to change the political landscape in some communities."
What does Maine loss mean for marriage movement? Marriage advocates are regrouping and reassessing their tactics following the repeal by voters of a marriage-equality law in Maine. Some question whether the strategy of targeting individual states has run its course, while others say the marriage movement's time is still coming, and are focusing anew on marriage measures in New York and New Jersey.
DP law gets voters' OK in Washington state Washington state voters, by about a 52-48 ratio, on Tuesday gave their approval to Referendum 71, which would keep in place a marriagelike domestic-partnership law. "Voters across the state listened to the personal stories of lesbian and gay families and the challenges they faced and sent a strong message that we want to see all families treated equally under the law in our state," said Anne Levinson, chairwoman of Washington Families Standing Together.
Mizeur: Maryland is inching toward marriage equality Maryland Delegate Heather Mizeur writes that legislative efforts have won LGBT couples only 12 of 425 "statutory state protections marriage confers in Maryland." She writes that she's looking for "Maryland to stop lagging behind and become a leader again" and pass a law recognizing out-of-state marriages such as her own.
Anti-bias measure wins big in Kalamazoo An anti-bias measure in Kalamazoo, Mich., that aims to protect people based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace, housing and public accommodations was approved by almost 62% of voters. Sixteen municipalities in Michigan now have such laws in place.
Gay couples: A close look at this modern family, parenting So many gay couples today have kids that it has become a cultural phenomenon – there's even a new TV show about a modern family that includes a gay couple with an adopted baby.
One in five male couples and one in three lesbian couples were raising children as of the 2000 Census. That's way up from 1990, when one in 20 male couples and one in five lesbian couples had kids.
But Census numbers are just part of a new comprehensive analysis of research on gay parenting since the 1970s in new book Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle, by Abbie Goldberg, an assistant professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.
Gay households have more in common than not with their heterosexual counterparts who are also raising kids, the research shows. "The sexual orientation of a parent has really little to do with their parenting," Goldberg says.
That idea comes through loud and clear in pop culture, in TV shows such as Modern Family, in which two gay men adopt a Vietnamese infant, and among celebrities as gay stars are increasingly having or adopting children.
Demographer Gary Gates of the Williams Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles also has studied same-sex families. His new analysis of the 2008 American Community Survey showed that 31% of same-sex couples who identify themselves as spouses are raising kids compared with 43% of heterosexual couples. That survey marked the first available Census data about same-sex spouses and gay U.S. families. Gates says same-sex couples who identify as married are similar to heterosexual couples in many ways, including the fact that almost one-third are raising children.
Among findings outlined in Goldberg's book:
•The transition to parenthood is similar for both homosexual couples and heterosexual couples.
•Children of gay couples don't differ from their peers raised by heterosexual couples in terms of their mental health, self-esteem, life satisfaction, social skills or number of friends.
•Children in gay families are teased more about their families and their sexuality but are not teased more overall.
Stephanie Woolley-Larrea, 36, of Miami says she and her partner, Mary Larrea, 49, have tried to prepare their 7-year-old triplets (two girls and a boy) to face such ridicule, but "it's been a non-issue."
Her kids know "their family is not like everybody else's" but "think it is much more unusual that they are triplets than that they have gay moms."
Goldberg's analysis also included phone interviews that began in 2005 with adoptive parents in 30 states, including 30 to 35 male couples, 40 lesbian couples and 50 to 60 heterosexual couples. They were interviewed before adoption and three months after, with two annual follow-ups so far.
"Gay men are just as likely to want to parent as straight men, but are less likely to parent because of all the barriers in their way," Goldberg says.
Her analysis also suggests that children of gay parents are no more likely to identify as gay themselves.
Sociologist Tim Biblarz of the University of Southern California-Los Angeles says too little long-term, large-scale research exists to conclude that being raised by same-sex couples doesn't affect sexual identity.
"That's an area that the next decade of research might really be able to pioneer."
Maine, Kalamazoo and Washington State: Equality at Stake This Tuesday, November 3rd, voters in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Maine and Washington state will decide whether or not LGBTQ families will be protected or validated by state law. In Maine, Question 1 is attempting to rescind equal marriage, which passed earlier in the year. In Washington State, Referendum 71 must be approved in order to keep the domestic partnership law that grants important protections and benefits to committed same-sex couples. Kalamazoo, a city not usually making headlines for LGBTQ issues, is at risk of losing an ordinance that grants protections to the LGBTQ community in housing and employment.
To say the least, it's an intense week for the LGBT community. For more information on these struggles, or to help out last minute, please visit the following websites.
Hate crimes protections for LGBT people are now the law The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law Wednesday as part of a defense-authorization measure by President Barack Obama. The law, which allows for the prosecution of crimes motivated by bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity, is the product of a decade's worth of work by LGBT advocates.
20-year-old HIV travel ban is lifted President Barack Obama announced the elimination of the ban on HIV-positive visitors coming to the U.S. at a signing ceremony for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act. The lifting of the HIV ban was approved by President George W. Bush, but his term ended before it could be implemented.
Birmingham school board goes to bat for gay students The Board of Education in Birmingham, Ala., has passed an anti-bullying policy that extends protection to LGBT students, while a companion policy targets harassment of LGBT teachers. Out board member Howard Bayless, who reported the news on the GayPolitics.com blog, writes, "None of this would have ever occurred had we not had a voice at the table."
Maine offers latest marriage-equality test for voters Although Stand for Marriage Maine has raised significantly more money than its anti-marriage opponents, the group isn't taking for granted that marriage rights will prevail in Tuesday's referendum. The marriage-equality group also has attracted volunteers nationwide through a Web site, www.travelforchange.org.
Groups want LGBT couples to make "Families Count" in census "Our Families Count" is a campaign being launched by two dozen LGBT groups to encourage participation in the 2010 U.S. Census, which will be the first to track the number of same-sex couples who describe themselves as being married.
Will Argentina be first in Latin America to say "I do" to marriage? LGBT advocates in Argentina believe they have a good chance of overcoming opposition from the Catholic Church and other religious groups to pass the first marriage-equality law in Latin America. Civil unions are legal in Uruguay.
Kenya to count gays as part of AIDS prevention, treatment In Kenya, where being gay is illegal and punishable with jail terms of up to 14 years, the government is trying to get an accurate count of the number of gays to improve its AIDS prevention and treatment efforts. The official in charge of this census acknowledged that it would be difficult to get an accurate count, because the survey would ask participants to identify gay men by name.
Anti-gay forces target LGBT candidates Several LGBT candidates around the nation have been targeted by anonymous anti-gay mailers and other tactics. Among those being attacked are Houston mayoral candidate Annise Parker and Jim Llanas and Sandra Kurt, who are running for City Council seats in Maplewood, Minn., and Akron, Ohio.
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