Headline from 365gay.com:

“LA Mayor Weds Gay Couple”

(Or am I the only one who parsed it this way? Compare, for example, “Gay Bishop Weds Longtime Partner,” or, on a straight note, “‘SNL’ alum Chris Kattan weds model Sunshine Tutt,” not to mention, from the amusing annals of straight, marriage-themed reality shows, “Ex-Bachelor Firestone Weds Model Bride.”)

Our friends at the Bilerico Project are celebrating their first birthday on Wednesday. Click over and join the fun. They’ll have contests and festivities all week long.

As it happens, Mombian passed its third birthday on June 21. Since that was only a day before my two-week trip to California, with unknown Internet access, I was going to hold off until I got back before doing a similar birthday contest, a little thank-you to all of you for reading. At this point, though, I don’t want to step on Bil’s toes, however virtual, so I’ll hold off until next week. Stay tuned. Consider it one long birthday season here in the LGBT blogosphere. (Being of Jewish heritage myself, I’m all about the eight-day holidays.)

I’m feeling inadequate. Dara Torres is my age, 41, the mother of a two-year old, and just qualified for the U.S. Olympic swim team with a win in the 100-meter freestyle and a U.S.-record time in the 50-meter freestyle. This will be her fifth Olympics. In 2007, she won the 50-meter freestyle at the U.S. Nationals with another American record, only 15 months after having her daughter.

Some are questioning whether her accomplishments are possible without chemical assistance. Others note that she voluntarily enrolled in a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency pilot program and has had both her urine and blood tested 12 to 15 times since March. (Most Olympic athletes only undergo urinalysis.) She was clean each time.

I’m inclined to believe Torres has that lucky combination of genetics and drive that enable her to perform such feats. Martina Navratilova won her ninth Wimbledon title at age 38, not so far behind Torres, and was 47 when she competed as a member of the 2004 U.S. Olympic team in women’s doubles. (She also won the U.S. Open mixed doubles finals in 2006; do the math.)

As for the effect of motherhood, Read the rest of this post »

Thomas Beatie and his wife Nancy welcomed a baby girl into the world last Sunday. Beatie, a transgender man, made headlines in March when he announced he was pregnant.

Best wishes to the new family. May they have the privacy and peace their young one needs while they also continue to help shift attitudes. Kudos also to ABC News for referring to Beatie as a “new dad” in acknowledgment of his gender identity and stated parental role. (His wife said on Oprah that she would be the mother and Beatie the father.) ABC’s phrase, “Transgender Man Born a Woman” does seem redundant, but we’ll allow it in the spirit of being clear for the clueless.

The American Family Association is calling for a boycott of McDonald’s restaurants, claiming that the company is giving “the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage,” according to Box Turtle Bulletin.

Normally I’d be more than happy to urge people to support a company that supports the LGBT community, especially when they’re under fire from the right. Supporting McDonald’s, however, conflicts with some very basic feelings I have as a mother, though—namely, that kids should learn good eating habits.

Good for McDonald’s if they are supporting the LGBT community. I saw a group of Mickey D employees in corporate t-shirts at the San Francisco Pride March last weekend, so I assume there’s some truth to it. Still, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, even if we share common values in a few instances.

Besides, if McDonald’s was really earnest about courting the community of lesbian moms, wouldn’t they offer hummus-and-sprout pita pockets or some such? (Yeah, yeah, stereotypes. I know.) Or put little Dottie and/or BuddyG action figures in their Happy Meals?

I’m finishing up vacation here in California and will be in transit and/or up to my eyeballs in dirty laundry for the next couple of days. I suspect many of you (at least in the U.S.) are traveling this week, too. If you are still online, however, why not take a few moments over this very American holiday to be a world citizen as well and read about same-sex parents in the Czech Republic? According to the article, parental rights were one of the key motivating factors for the country’s first-ever Pride march last Saturday.

The link was sent to me by Sylva Ficová, one of the founders of Lesbický koutek, “a site for Czech lesbian (and gay) couples who have or want to have kids.” She is also a member of Stejná rodina (The Same Family), whose goal is “the legislative emancipation of Czech LGBT families.” (These last two sites are in Czech, which is beyond my language skills; Google Translate does a pretty horrible job on them, but may give you at least a sense of their content.) I hope we can all learn something by sharing our experiences, even across the boundaries of language and culture.

If you missed it, you may also want to read last week’s guest post about lesbian parenting in Argentina. (If you live outside the U.S. and would like to contribute a guest post with your perspective on LGBT parenting in your country, please drop me a note. I’m happy to ask other readers to help with translation, if needed.)

Thirty million dollars. That’s what consultants are estimating both sides could spend on Proposition 8, the November ballot initiative that would amend California’s constitution to ban marriage of same-sex couples.

Rather than wasting money trying to stop loving couples from marrying (or having to fight for their right to do the same), here’s a rough list of some other things $30 million could buy:

• Reimbursements for over 12 million school lunches under the National School Lunch Program, or enough for almost 67,000 students per year.
• Funding to cover most of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed $37.1 million in cuts (PDF link) to L.A. County health-care providers.
• Enough to cover the $29 million in Stage 1 childcare expenditures (when childcare needs are unstable; PDF link) paid to families in CalWORKs (the state welfare system) during April 2008.
• Over 3.3 million copies of The Cat in the Hat, enough to give one to each of California’s 2.8 million K-5 students, with some left over for preschoolers.
• 143,000 laptops through the One Laptop per Child program.
• 833,000 boxes of Costco (Kirkland) brand diapers, equivalent to 195 million diapers in size 1-2, enough to cover nearly 67,000 babies at 8 diapers/day for a year.

These aren’t necessarily the most important or only things one could do with this money. I also realize that if the marriage battle ended now the money wouldn’t automatically go to any of the above items. I mean to give a sense of what we’re wasting here, not to set actual priorities or assume apples will transform to oranges.

But still . . .

What would you do for the public good with $30 million?

Children’s musicians Erin Lee and Marci bring us the next of their regular posts with thematic recommendations for kid-friendly music, plus activities to make the songs an interactive experience for the whole family. I’m posting this a wee bit early this month because I’m on vacation; you can usually find Erin Lee and Marci here at their regular time, the first Monday of each month, or visit their homepage, www.gottaplay.org. (Catch them on the R Family cruise this summer, too!)

I’ve created links to Amazon for the full albums (click the album image or name), plus links to Amazon MP3 downloads for those who want only the singles. (Click the song name.)

One of our favorite things is a song that tells a story. Often we write our songs because someone has told us a really good tale. That was the case with Elm Avenue Waltz, when our friend Phil told us about a cranky neighbor that all the kids in his neighborhood used to whisper about. Once, a kid lost a football in her yard – and when he went to retrieve it, he found that she had sliced the ball open with a big kitchen knife! After that, everyone was afraid to go in her yard, and if someone accidentally threw a ball there, it was considered lost. Well, as soon as we heard his story we had to write a song.

So, this month’s music recommendations feature a certain type of song rather than a topic. We don’t know what prompted Steve Weeks or Monty Harper to write their story songs – we hope that Steve wasn’t plagues by monkeys, and we certainly hope that Monty wasn’t kidnapped by aliens. But we do hope that you enjoy listening to these stories! Read the rest of this post »

Publishing this early because of my vacation schedule; I’ll catch late-Friday news next week.

• The U.S. House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on workplace discrimination against transgender people, “the first ever hearing in Congress exclusively on transgender issues.” HRC has coverage here and here and here.
• Bilerico’s Alex Blaze has compiled an intriguing collection of media comments that seek to portray Barack Obama as effeminate, and therefore weak and unfit for office. Alex writes: “It’s the adult equivalent of calling someone a fag on the schoolyard. It’s not that they think Obama’s actually into the same-sex lovin’, they just want you to know that he’s just not right, he’s weak, he’s just so… gay.” A good look at media bias.
• Presidential candidate John McCain announced his support for an amendment to the California constitution that would ban marriage of same-sex couples. He also held secret meetings with the Log Cabin Republicans. Michelle Obama, wife of his rival Barack Obama, will give the keynote address at the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council gala in New York this week. (Thanks, PageOneQ.)

Read the rest of this post »

Kermit Love, the costume designer who helped Jim Henson create Big Bird, has died at age 91. He is survived by his partner of 50 years, Christopher Lyall.

Love built the Big Bird costume based on designs by Henson, and also helped design costumes and puppets for Snuffleupagus, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster, among others. The New York Times has more.

Big Bird has always been one of my favorite Sesame Street characters. He is to me the emotional heart of the show, everyone’s sympathetic friend. Actor Carroll Spinney deserves credit for bringing Big Bird to life, but Love gave him an appearance that made him an instantly recognizable icon.

What’s your favorite Big Bird skit or song?