Why Gay Adoption Matters in the Florida Governor's Race
Published November 18, 2009 @ 06:39PM PT
Florida is one of two states that have instituted bans on adoption for LGBT families, sharing the dubious honor with Arkansas. Thankfully, there's movement in Florida to overturn this out-dated law that not only fosters homophobia, but punishes children by keeping them away from healthy families.
First a judge last year in Miami ruled that the ban on gay adoption was illegal. Then came word this week that a candidate for governor in Florida, Alex Sink, supports overturning the ban.
That's huge news, in part because Alex Sink's opponent in the Governor's race -- current state Attorney General Bill McCollum -- proudly defends the ban on gay adoption and believes that homosexuality fosters depression and psychological illness. Those are McCollum's exact words in a lawsuit filed to keep the gay adoption ban in place. Seems like he'd rather have children languish in America's foster care system than see them placed with qualified and outstanding parents.
To be clear, nearly every single study on adoption shows that not only do children do well when they are placed with LGBT parents, but they in some cases outperform children raised by straight parents. Moreover, massive numbers of studies show that gay parents are just as gifted and qualified to raise children than straight parents.
Sink's comments underscore that very fact, and place Florida children above partisan social issue politics. McCollum's words and deeds, on the contrary, keep children from being raised in healthy homes, and hold them hostage to a right-wing agenda hell-bent on using faith instead of science and the principle of equality to best determine state adoption policy.
The End of the Road for Carrie Prejean
Published November 18, 2009 @ 10:06AM PT
Turns out that if you make at least eight sex tapes, then ask your boyfriend to lie about your age in them, then say that it's very Christian to get a boob job, and finally tell Larry King that he's being inappropriate for simply asking basic journalistic questions, you might find yourself on the defensive. And that's right where Carrie Prejean, the former Miss USA pageant contestant of "opposite marriage" fame, is finding herself these days.
Her latest setback? The National Organization for Marriage -- the conservative anti-gay organization that scooped Prejean up after her gay marriage comments at this year's Miss USA contest -- has disassociated themselves from the former beauty queen. After all, it's kind of hard to espouse traditional family values with a side order of lewd sex videos.
And the hits just keep on coming. According to Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate, Prejean has also had her invitation rescinded to speak at the GOP's Capitol Hill Club, a fancy pants conservative private club that caters to Republican lawmakers inside the Beltway. Even Meghan McCain got in on this story, saying that Prejean exudes hypocrisy.
"I find it even more disturbing that as long as you oppose gay marriage, filming yourself having sex is taken more lightly," McCain wrote for the Daily Beast. "Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in this kind of thinking? And hypocrisy is something the Republican Party can’t afford to have right now as the GOP struggles to find its identity."
Justice Scalia is Talking Sodomy Again
Published November 17, 2009 @ 06:54PM PT
He may arguably be the U.S. Supreme Court's most conservative justice, but for a man who likes to sell folks on traditional family values, Justice Antonin Scalia sure does like to talk about sodomy. His latest riff on the subject comes courtesy of an Ohio State University conference on the Constitution, where Scalia said that since the nation's founders didn't write sodomy or homosexuality into the U.S. Constitution, there's no good reason to think that people deserve the right to love whoever they choose.
Boy, if only the nation's founders had written that U.S. Supreme Court justices could be term-limited! Especially ones who go duck hunting with torture-loving ex-Vice Presidents.
Justice Scalia prodded folks who believe that the Constitution is a living document. "Did any provision of the Constitution guarantee a right to abortion? No one thought so for almost two centuries after the founding. Did any provision in the Constitution guarantee a right to homosexual sodomy? Same answer," Scalia said, according to the Associated Press. It's a line he's used before, so three cheers for soundbytes that last more than a year.
The Catholic Church's Program to Cure Gay People
Published November 17, 2009 @ 02:15PM PT
Psychologists around the globe have almost universally condemned ex-gay therapy programs -- rogue "treatment" sessions often sponsored by religious groups to try and change one's sexual orientation from LGBT to heterosexual. The American Psychological Association (APA) even adopted a resolution this past summer that said ex-gay therapy programs were inadequate and potentially dangerous, especially for the long-term mental health of those victimized by such programs.
It's just too bad that the Catholic Church isn't listening to the global health professional community. Case in point, take the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which through its Office of Marriage and Family Life is supporting a type of ex-gay therapy program that asserts homosexuality is both treatable and preventable.
The program is called Courage, and it "ministers" to people who have same-sex attractions, as well as their loved ones. Part of that ministry includes drilling into peoples' brains that homosexuality is a mental disorder, that people in same-sex relationships will never find peace, and that people attracted to members of the same sex suffer from "sickness."
And the really scary part is that not only is this program alive and well in places like St. Paul and Minneapolis, but there are chapters in roughly 116 cities around the country, and even more worldwide. Sure, it's long been no secret that the Church harshes on same-sex marriage. But their active investment in conversion therapy programs signals a whole new level of homophobia, and a whole other level of ignorance when it comes to psychology and human sexuality.
Female Country Music Stars Love Them Some Gay Marriage
Published November 17, 2009 @ 08:33AM PT
*crickets*
OK, so it doesn't make the best punchline. But it is true that several country music superstars are making bold steps to speak up for LGBT equality. The latest is Dolly Parton, who not only said she's cool with gay marriage last week, but also dropped a bit of a sucker punch in the direction of Pastor Joel Osteen, who himself went on national television a few weeks back and said that homosexuality "wasn't God's best." Parton said that if Pastor Osteen were genuinely religious, he wouldn't be judging LGBT folks.
Huh, turns out that God's best may be a bunch of country music divas.
The Kids are Alright: New Studies Prove Same-Sex Parents Rock
Published November 17, 2009 @ 08:13AM PT
Having finally accepted the fact that good Christian heterosexuals sometimes produce gay offspring (I'm talking to you, Cheney), the world must now face another social science truth: gay parents are perfectly capable of producing happy, well-adjusted, predominantly heterosexual kids. A new book by psychologist Abbie E. Goldberg, PhD., reveals that (spoiler alert!) same-sex parents don't totally mess up their kids.
In fact, studies show that girls raised by same-sex parents are more likely to want to be doctors and lawyers (30 percent more aspire to such jobs than their mom-and-dad-raised counterparts), while boys--well, boys still feel they can be anything they want. Lesbian mothers (the data on gay dads is currently limited) raise kids who play with both dolls and trucks and, in general, ignore all those years of social conditioning regarding gender roles.
Military Chaplains Agree: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Hurts U.S. Security
Published November 16, 2009 @ 06:30PM PT
A group of retired military chaplains are lending their voices toward a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," writing in a publicly released Q&A that the U.S. military's policy of not welcoming openly gay and lesbian soldiers is hurting national security. The chaplains also cut straight to the core of the anti-gay argument that openly gay and lesbian soldiers would harm unit cohesion, concluding that gay troops pose no threat to military morale.
The chaplains have history on their side. Though it's not well known, President George H.W. Bush actually put a stop to military discharges based on sexual orientation during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. The result wasn't the doomsday scenario painted by organizations like the Center for Military Readiness, that views openly gay and lesbian soldiers as a pox upon the military. Instead, there was no documented negative effect on unit morale, cohesion, good order, or discipline.
And that was twenty years ago! If our soldiers could handle a military with openly gay and lesbian soldiers in 1990, what would stop them in 2009 or 2010?
