Mary Cheney & the Politics of Gay Parenting

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Thursday February 01, 2007 · 12:54 PM PST

2007/02/01 · 12:54

I'm a wee bit out of sorts today, for various reasons, and wasn't even sure I'd post much today. But, as we're waiting to expand our family, I've been thinking a lot about the various things that have been said about gay parents, gay couples adopting, etc. And I've been blogging a lot about the challenges our families face, particularly related to not-having the rights and protections that other families have. Mary Cheney's pregnancy was one opportunity to do that.

She's been pretty quiet since announcing her pregnancy, and setting off a firestorm of controversy. So, when I saw a New York Times article in which Mary Cheney talks about her pregnancy, and the decision she and Heather made to become parents, I had to stop and read it. It's not often — in fact, it's downright rare — that I find myself nodding in agreement with Mary Cheney. So, when that happens, I think it's worth noting.

TerranceDC

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Sunday November 26, 2006 · 10:36 AM PST

2006/11/26 · 10:36

I hate to say "I told you so" — especially in this case — but can we finally just admit this? It doesn't fucking work. Can we go one step further and say that funding religious organizations to teach abstinence-only education and spread anti-condom propaganda in Africa is an act of genocide?

Remember a while back when I unpacked the rest of a post from Anderson Cooper's blog, about a religious charity running a program in Africa for women with fistulas? Remember the rest of the story being the Bush administration's suspension of funding for a UN program that served the same function, and leaving the door open for religious organizations to step in do do as they please. And how the faith-based organization featured in the post ran an HIV prevention program that focused on abstinence and little else?

TerranceDC

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Wednesday November 15, 2006 · 4:10 PM PST

2006/11/15 · 16:10

PFOX is infiltrating in my kid's school district.

A flier from a group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, or PFOX, has started a controversy in Silver Spring.

The flier was handed out during homeroom to students at Montgomery Blair High School.

News4's Miguel Almaguer reported that gay students at the high school said the group behind it is homophobic.

The school said it had no choice but to pass it out.

TerranceDC

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Tuesday November 14, 2006 · 11:51 AM PST

2006/11/14 · 11:51

OK. I'm gonna try not to get mad about this.

They didn't hug. They didn't kiss. They didn't even sit together.

Many couples going to the Arlington County Courthouse seemed more like strangers than people applying for marriage licenses. A man named Sam often escorted them to the sixth-floor clerk's office. Sometimes, there would be a furtive exchange of money in the elevator.

Before long, some of the same people would be back, filing for divorce, their court papers littered with mistakes -- always the same mistakes.

TerranceDC

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Monday November 13, 2006 · 2:28 PM PST

2006/11/13 · 14:28

Is this thing on? Heh. And we're back, sort of. I'm still figuring out how best to proceed with QueerlyKos, and find a process that makes it easier to write bits and pieces during the week. So, that's one reason for the change in format after the jump. I'm also asking for some volunteers to help collect links during the week and/or take turns writing the round-up each week. (Ideally, with three or four more people, we'd each only end up writing the round-up once a month, with everyone compiling links.) Drop me an email at the address in my profile if interested.

After a bit of a meltdown last week, which I blame at least partially on the election and the news that another one Britney Spears' marriages crashed and burned, plus the fact that she's been married twice (but the first one was a drunken joke and only lasted 55 hours, so it doesn't really count) in the same time that I've been all-but-legally married to the same (whom I didn't steal from a girlfriend pregnant with his second child). Don't get me wrong, I'm still doing more to make a mockery of marriage than she is, but damn Brit keeps raising the bar.

TerranceDC

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Wednesday November 08, 2006 · 9:44 AM PST

2006/11/08 · 09:44

There's tons of post-election analysis out there already, delivered by people with more credentials and mojo that I've got, but I'll toss my $0.02 in the pot anyway. Here the short version of my take: It's not quite "morning in America" yet, but it looks like the crack of dawn. (Or the crack of Don, depending on your taste.) For the first time since 1992, I have something to smile about on "the morning after" (as opposed to "the mourning after").

I've only just taken a look at the news this morning, because I avoided looking at returns last night (I learned my lesson in 2000, thank you), but here are the items that I top my list of what makes today a good day.

TerranceDC

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Monday November 06, 2006 · 1:48 PM PST

2006/11/06 · 13:48

(Crossposted from my blog.)

You may have noticed things have slowed down here a bit. There was no QueerlyKos this weekend, because I wasn't able to find time to finish writing it. It's sitting, half-written, on my desktop, and I think by the time I find time to actually write it most of what's in it won't be news anymore anyway.

Time. That's my big bugaboo right now. There's not enough of it. What there is of it is caught in a tug of war between "what I have to to" and "what I want to do," which a becoming increasingly different things. Right now, the former is winning the battle and the latter is running out of rope. There's more stuff I have to do, and more stuff that I want to do, but less time for the latter. Read More

The Sad Irony of the Black Vote

TerranceDC

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Thursday November 02, 2006 · 7:25 AM PST

2006/11/02 · 07:25

I have to begrudgingly agree with Stephen, it is indeed ironic that George Allen's campaign blitz on same-sex marraige may actually work against him.

A state constitutional marriage amendment designed to motivate conservative voters and help Virginia Sen. George Allen's re-election campaign appears to be backfiring, at least among black voters.

The Republican senator probably will benefit from evangelical Christians voting for the amendment. But, the amendment also will drive turnout among the state's black voters, many of whom are questioning whether Mr. Allen is racially insensitive and deserves a second term.

TerranceDC

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Wednesday November 01, 2006 · 1:47 PM PST

2006/11/01 · 13:47

I mentioned previously that I'd been reading Jim Wallis' God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, which I got my hands on via BookMooch. I'd been a bit critical of Wallis around the time that Obama was going on about Democrats courting evangelicals, because he and the rest of the "partial progressives" among the evangelicals who may be gaining influence with Democrats seem to ease up on their progressivism when it comes to gay issues.

But Wallis, in the aftermath of the Goodridge decision, affirmed that the "[Gay Americans'] civil and human rights must be honored, respected, and defended for a society to be healthy." Impressive, coming from an evangelical Christian. So, I decided that at some point I wanted to read Wallis' book to see just where I agreed with him, but also to see more about what he had to say about same-sex marriage and gay & lesbian civil rights. I ended up surprised in some ways, and not so surprised in others.

TerranceDC

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Tuesday October 31, 2006 · 2:03 PM PST

2006/10/31 · 14:03

Last week I sped through David Kuo's Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (after reading that someone from inside Bush's "faith-based initiative" was saying the same things I'd been saying about it all along, I couldn't resist picking it up), and I'm struck by how he offers a totally different view of times we both experienced in DC. But I think sometimes his lens is a little blurry. It may even Kuo has some vaseline on his lens, as so many of the portrayals of key players -- including the first appearance of George W. Bush -- are done with the same kind of soft focus that's used to hide the flaws of aging Hollywood stars.

TerranceDC

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Sunday October 29, 2006 · 6:16 PM PST

2006/10/29 · 18:16

I don't think I have to tell anyone what the big news was this week. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that this week the New Jersey Supreme Court handed down a decision on same-sex marriage that actually stopped short of supporting same-sex marriage, while also finding that same-sex couples should have the same benefits and protections as married couples and kicking it back to the legislature to figure out the best way for that to happen. For my part, I pointed out that in many ways same-sex couples already assume the the court called the "burdens and obligations" of marriage without equal benefits and with the additional burden of subsidizing those benefits for "state sanctioned families."

TerranceDC

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Friday October 27, 2006 · 12:56 PM PDT

2006/10/27 · 12:56

It's been an strange month to be black and gay in America so far. First there was the gay bashing that killed Michael Sandy in New York, and the disturbing news of Tyrone Garner's lack of a burial 37 days after his death with the possibility of a pauper's burial in the end. Those depressing stories were balanced out somewhat yesterday by the news of the New Jersey Supreme Court decision and the fact that a black lesbian couple was among the plaintiffs whose willingness to take a stand yielded that historic moment.

But even that good news was tempered by reading Keith's post about his speech at Central State University, a historically black college in Wilberforce, Ohio. It was the inspiration for the title of this post. I considered titling it "Hysterically Black Homophobia," because of the reaction Keith says his speech got. But it felt too serious a topic for snark, though the response of the students as described by Keith does indeed seem hysterical, and the homophobia at its foundation is historical.

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Mary Cheney & the Politics of Gay Parenting

AIDS, Africa & Abstinence-Only

A Few Words for PFOX

Marriage: Scam, Sacred Institution, or Both?

The Return of Queerly Kos

Quick Queer Post-Election Hits

QueerlyKos & My Mid-Blog Crisis

The Sad Irony of the Black Vote

Gays & "God's Politics"

Not Tempted by Kuo's "Tempting Faith"

QueerlyKos - The Garden State Edition

Historically Black Homophobia