Or does it explode

My facebook feed has been full of two streams: anxious anticipation of the Supreme Court's hearing of a challenge to state bans on gay marriage.  This morning brings two and half hours of oral argument.  The best place to follow the action is always SCOTUS blog, and they have helpfully included some "in plain English" coverage.  Check it out here.http://www.scotusblog.com/

The other stream is the Baltimore protests/riots/uprising/as well as some kids being kids.  While I don't think of the Baltimore Sun as the best newspaper around, their coverage of present events includes important details not covered in national outlets.  The Sun has made all of their coverage freely available and it also includes timelines of the death of Freddie Gray and investigative coverage of the 5.7 million dollars the Baltimore Police Department has quietly paid out since 2011 for beating and otherwise brutalizing the citizenry of Baltimore. And if you want to know what that brutality looks like on the ground, check out Conor Friederdorf's article in the Atlantic, "The Brutality of Police Culture in Baltimore."

If you're looking for some analysis, Ta-Nehisi Coates does it again with his article "Nonviolence as Compliance." If you are watching coverage of the Baltimore protests on CNN and you're horrified and you are telling the tv "you're doing it wrong!" "why are you destroying your own city!" (I'm not even going to touch the "they are all animals!" commentary) then this article is a must read.

If like me, you feel like you're trapped in the way back machine, you can check out the Kerner Report, commissioned by LBJ in 1967 to explore the causes of riots (Watts, Newark, etc.) it was released shortly before the massive nationwide riots after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. The famous quote from the report is "Our Nation is moving toward two societies-one black, one white-seperate and unequal." There is a lot of video of the 1968 riots available online-the most interesting thing about these videos is, once you get past seeing armed troops on the streets of an American city, they are boring.  Most of what happens is people standing in the street.  This video does illustrate the role the 1968 Baltimore riot played in the mass incarceration of black men that now decimates cities like Baltimore.  If you look at arrest rates by race historically, 1968 shows a huge bump that just keeps rising over the following decades.  Here's some NPR coverage from 2008 on the 1968 riots and their aftermath.

Baltimore's the only city where I've felt so freaked out walking that I turned around and went back.  And that was after years spent traversing the South Side of Chicago.  Baltimore just has such a high percentage of busted/broken/non-functional compared to the parts that do work. Despite that I've spent a good amount of time in parts of Baltimore where white ladies don't usually go, and, as is my usual experience, people have always been good to me.  Shortly before I left Baltimore for good, I was walking a group of my students through a historic old black neighborhood in Baltimore, telling the history through the architecture.  Looking at abandoned buildings, an open middle school with its huge windows thrown open and no screens, the few limping businesses.  A neighborhood still filled with apple and cherry blossoms. Wondering what the Dean would say if anything bad happened.  Nothing happened.

My Baltimore was filled with love and threat and suffering.  Filled with the friendly and loving people, who could not fix the crumbling infastructure, the massive disinvestment.  Baltimore is a colonial outpost where the wealthy extract what they can-the University studies the local population, where strong young men go to prison to work for free.  Baltimore is the most civic-minded place I have ever lived, where local people know that if you want something done you have to get your neighbors together and do it, because the city will never show up to help.  My Baltimore was one of compassion fatigue, where every educator, health care worker, law enforcement officer created a hard shell to survive in the face of so much suffering-and so did I.

B and I were once driving through some shitty neighborhood in East Baltimore-not the one that looks like London after the Blitz, a different one, with people.  I was in the passenger seat fiddling with the ipod as B pulled up to a light.  I looked out the car window and a young Black man caught my eye. As he looked a me, he moved toward the car reaching.  I looked at him and my arm moved to hit the lock on the car door.  He drew his hand back and laughed, and I laughed.  We had both played our parts pitch perfect, the way we were born to do.

Violence isn't the answer, but neither is peace.  When I see the young people of Baltimore throwing rocks, I see Palestinian children, I see the children of northern Ireland.  When you've got nothing, when you'll never have anything, when your only recourse is to gather the gleanings of the wealthy and powerful, you pick up a rock.

We are all bound together in this world.  I hope for a Supreme Court ruling that will be LGBTQ people closer to equality-closer to fundamental protections for our families and our bodies.  But even as we get more, we must remember that we are still "the least of these." Our strength as LGBTQ people is that we are a cross section of everyone.  We are rich and poor, people of all races and religions, of all genders, of all political orientations.  Our shared oppression, throughout history and in the present, can have meaning if it makes us more empathetic and compassionate to the suffering of others.  We are all bound together and our victories only have meaning if they make the world more just, more equal for all people.

The Gay Divorcee

The first state-sanctioned gay marriages in the US began in 2004. Guess who is now divorced? Hillary and Julie Goodridge, the lead plaintiffs in the Massachusetts court case that brought gay marriage to that state.  So I'm in good company?

B and I went down to get our marriage license on the first day they were offered in D.C.  It was a lot of fun with people giving out cupcakes and flowers and a long line of diverse couples.  We were couple 80-something.  And I've wondered if we are the first couple from that day to get divorced.  Probably not, probably at least one of those couples freaked out within the first year and decided to split.

And on that day we were minor gay marriage poster children.  We were on the tv news.  Funny story: so apparently it's actually quite difficult to stand outside a courthouse and figure out which people walking out the building are part of a soon-to-be gay-married couple and who are just random work friends going to lunch.  So the news crew wasn't approaching anyone until they saw us walk out, me carrying the flower that I was given in line.

The charming Jim Darling took our picture.  If you need a portrait or some wedding photography, you should look him up here.

If you've been reading here, you know I am no fan of marriage as a system of distributing rights and privilege.  Remaining married isn't an issue of moral obligation to me.  But I do think that if a couple chooses to get married by the state and make that public commitment it comes with an ethical obligation to try and stay married.  And within that framework, four years of marriage seems pretty pathetic.

B says she feels no particular shame as a gay divorcee, but I'll admit to a twinge.  I think that twinge comes from the hubris of thinking that it would never be us who would split, that somehow we were different than all the divorced straight couples we know, that we would cope every so gracefully with the pressures that face all couples.  Pride comes before fall.

PW: Goofus and Gallant

http://lbbreadandroses.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/goofus-and-gallant/

I am actually planning a post on life with an awesome four year old, but for now click on over for unending marital crisis.

"That is not my beautiful wife"

PW protected at the other blog, same pw that I've been using.  Comment below or email me if you'd like the password:

http://lbbreadandroses.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/that-is-not-my-beautiful-wife/

How We're Living Now

Some pw protected goodness over at the other blog:

http://lbbreadandroses.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/how-were-living-now/

That Time I Unfollowed My Wife on Facebook

Like Jr. High-aged couples everywhere, social media has been a point of contention between me and B since she told me she no longer wants to be married.  The low point came when I was on vacation with B and child.  B's soulmate commented on a thread in which B had checked in with me at a bar and posted a picture of me (although in B's defense, I think the beer was supposed to be the main point-not me).

I reflected on the time I punched a girl in the face on a street in Boston because she slept with my boyfriend (in the Biblical sense).  And then I didn't know what to do, so I punched her again and called her various names (don't worry I also made sure he got his).  Now, some number of decades later, I did not take a redeye back to Providence to punch someone in the face.  I did not curse someone out on virtual Main Street.  I didn't even make any acerbic comments.  I just backed away and felt embarrassed and angry.  I assured myself that the Other Woman was likely not a scary stalker who would break into our house and cut up all our sheets while we were away, but just another insecure and jealous soul like the rest of us-albeit one with less self-control. And I drew this diagram and gave it to B to give to her.

I am bitter.  I'll own that, but I'll keep it here in my space.  My street fighting days are over.

"I tried my best just to be a man"

This is the official jam of my separation from B.  I love this song and you should definitely check it out, even if your man or lady isn't stepping out on you:

Slimkid3 & DJ Nu-Mark "I Know, Didn't I" featuring Darondo

The universe keeps chattering at me.  I feel like I notice background music more than other people.  Walking through Target aisles listening to "City of New Orleans" or waiting at line at the bank listening to "Blurred Lines," songs seem to hold an overwhelming meaning.  Now it's "Don't Think Twice" playing at the grocery store, or "Say My Name" blaring on the speakers outside the gas station.  LB, B, and I were in Savers last week ostensibly looking for a dresser for our 2nd rental (June will be nesting in the cozy house while B and I swap out time at the other place), and what should come over the PA system as we tried to wrest a hideous unicorn costume away from LB?  Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good,"which made me think: "Who the hell picked this out? And will you please stop rattling around in my brain>"

I married Don Draper (pw protected)

Here it is in all its glory:

http://lbbreadandroses.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/i-married-don-draper/

Same pw, comment or email me if you want to read.

PW Protected: "Things aren't very good around here anymore"

At my wordpress blog I've joined the other posters sharing the other side of the of the happy summer list posts.  Comment below or email me at chronicladybug@gmail.com if you want the password.  This post contains content appropriate only for those who like a little drama.

http://lbbreadandroses.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/things-arent-very-good-around-here-anymore/

Because my daughter could have died alone

This post is the one I don't want to spend the weekend writing.  I thought of funnier topics and cuter topics, but this is the post I need to write.  This post is part of Blogging for LGBTQ Families Day sponsored by Mombian, but today I'm not talking to my usual audience of friends, lesbian moms, feminists, and fellow travelers.  Instead my imagined audience for this post is someone like Kendra, who blogs at Catholic All Year.  I hope she won't mind a shout out (and just a note that this post contains no cursing, no explicit content, and a minimum of typos).  I thought of Kendra when I began this post because she is an intelligent and thoughtful blogger who engages with political and social issues, and also finds gay marriage in my words: morally, culturally, and theologically abhorrent, and in her words "immoral" and "sinful."

This is our story:  I married B in a civil ceremony at the courthouse in D.C., attended by our parents, and occurring two days after we found out our first attempt at IUI was unsuccessful.  A month later I was pregnant.  A few months into my pregnancy (2nd clinic IUI, anonymous donor from a bank), we made the obligatory trip to a family lawyer.  In most urban areas you can find a small cadre of lawyers specializing in gay families and you find them by asking around or googling.  I believe we paid $2,500 for a 2nd parent adoption and an additional $1000 for estate planning. In Maryland, our part of the process included a doctor's note, some essay questions, letters of support from friends and family, and pictures including a required picture of our front door.

While we were happy with ourselves for being diligent and starting the process early, the legal reality was that no guardianship or adoption paperwork could be filed before a living baby was born.  I could make my belief that this baby belonged to both B and me and that we would parent the baby together known through unofficial channels, but we could not formalize B's relationship to our baby until after the baby was born.

At the time, that didn't seem like a big deal.  Life continued, lots of sleeping, trips to IKEA, inhaling chicken and bulgogi beef, picking up extra work to earn extra money, procuring my great grandmother's rocking chair.  Throughout I was nervous but healthy, as was B.

Then, an ultrasound showed that baby's previously normal growth had slowed: monitoring.  And long after my nausea had subsided, I had some episodes of violent puking (in the bushes outside my classroom and in a plastic bag in the car and on the sidewalks of my neighborhood where only junkies puke).  Not great, but I knew that puking could be a normal 3rd tri thing.  Then were some headaches so bad that they made me cry, but my screenings and blood work were okay, so I went about my business.

We hit week 27 and I was headed out of town for one final conference.  I went in for my regular checkup: blood pressure pretty high, concerning level of protein in my urine - for the first time, blood work ordered.  The next day I was prepping for class and one of the midwives called to request my presence at L&D - immediately.  The blood work had shown significantly raised liver enzymes.  "But I have a class to teach.  I don't have a bag packed." I negotiated for two hours, hustled over to my classroom to put a sign on the door, burst into staff meeting crying, and called B. to come get me.

At the hospital we went immediately to the MFM practice.  I had previously met the doctor there when he brought some med students in to observe my impressive fibroids.  Extended and anxious scanning, discussion of IUGR, a steroid shot, and the doctor: "You have severe preeclampsia.  We need to prepare for you to have this baby in the next 48 hours," he said pulling a sad face.

On L&D we sat on a bench in the hall.  They brought a woman through as she screamed that she was losing her baby. Our midwife waved from behind the nurses' station, but didn't come out to greet us (still bitter).  My blood pressure was 160/100.

The night in the hospital was long and loud.  The nurse's default was to turn up the baby's monitors as loud as possible so that it sounded like I was in my own womb, women screamed endlessly, my blood pressure monitor alarmed every 15 minutes because my pressure was too high and no one came to turn off the alarm.  But I had B there with me, sleeping fitfully, together.

A second night B went home to stay with our freaked out dogs.  A nurse told me she wouldn't be able to come back until visiting hours started again the next morning.  "We're married, we have a certificate, she's my next of kin."  The nurse said we could get it sorted in the morning.  B remembers that the visitors desk swapped her "visitor" wristband for a "family" wristband that gave her access to L&D 24 hours a day without any hassle.

Despite the frustrations of the hospital, I started to simply exist.  The days blurred quietly together with tests and scans and quiet.  I read steadily through the collected Sherlock Holmes stories.

B and I couldn't discuss the what-ifs, we lay in my little hospital bed and tried to imagine our baby's future.  I had a half-waking dream about a little boy and a little girl on a beach, and I felt a wave of peace.  We had already chosen LB's first and middle names after her great-grandmothers, but I told B that if they baby was a girl and she lived, we should give her a second middle name, Grace, after the Our Lady of Grace statue in the hospital lobby.

Time felt soft, I was floating and waiting.  Baby stayed strong.  And then her heart rate was alarming.  And she went off the monitors and couldn't be found.  The head resident efficiently and calmly, too calmly, pulled the portable ultrasound into the room.  She was so calm that I didn't know when she found the heartbeat, and asked several minutes later "is she there?" I called B and asked her to leave work and come sit with me.

B talked to our lawyer, who said she would drive up to Baltimore after the baby was born with our paperwork.  "What if something happens to me during the birth?" I asked a nurse.  "You'll be okay," she said.  It wasn't a question I asked with fear for my own mortality, it was a technical question.  "What if something happens to me?  They'll put our baby in foster care," I said to B.  "We have a lawyer, if there's a problem your parents will come down and sign over custody, it will be okay." B understood, but we didn't have much of plan, and I couldn't dwell on the future.  When I did, I was forced to consider a future in which our baby did not live.

For the first nine days in the hospital, I felt okay.  On the 10th day, I did not.  I saw floaters before my eyes, that I did not report.  I felt off.  My MFM popped back in with the verdict: rising liver enzymes, stubbornly high BP despite major meds, baby not growing, and now dropping platelets.  "It's time, you'll have this baby tomorrow morning."

B stayed with me that night and we cried and imagined our baby.  Surgery prep started early, but we were already awake.  A nurse came in to start the magnesium sulfate, which I describe here.  Mag acts as a muscle relaxant, and after I stopped sweating and puking bile, I felt very calm.  B put on her gown and held my hand as I was wheeled to the OR.

The anesthesiologist was waiting for us, he asked me to sit on the table and put both my arms around B's shoulders.  "It will feel like bee stings" he said.  I was too relaxed to talk, but I thought, "I've totally got this!" having been stung several times by a wasp in my office with no ill-effects.  I lay on the table, relaxed and unable to see without my glasses.

I'm sure B was trying to crack some jokes, but I don't remember much until there was a flurry of movement and someone said "You have a daughter."  "Is she alive?" I asked.  "Yes, Yes" and a tiny pink bundle was flashed somewhere near my face.  I thought I heard a tiny mew.  "She's breathing on her own."  B ran back and forth between me and LB(G) managing to snap the first baby-in-a-plastic-bag (to conserve body heat) photos.

As the NICU nurses prepped LB, my team got louder and more energetic.  "Blood, I need blood!" became "WHERE'S THE DAMN BLOOD!"  Muttering, orders, cursing.  "Okay, we need to put you under, okay?  B, you'll need to step outside after she goes under." I tried to nod, thinking "yes, I don't really want to be awake for this." I breathed as deeply as I could, trying to make it go as fast as possible.

The next five hours or so are not my story, but what has been told to me.  Medically, my low platelet and fibroids combo had complicated delivery, and led to extensive bleeding requiring extensive surgery.  Thankfully the replacement blood did arrive in time.  Meanwhile, B was sent back to my room to wait with a friend who had just happened to come visit us.  She prayed the rosary with a Quaker, and sweated through a Code Blue not knowing that it wasn't me.  A nurse came in and sent her up to the NICU to see LB.  Born at 29weeks, weighing 2lbs 3oz, LB was holding her own.  B kangarooed her (I would share the lovely pics, but B isn't wearing a shirt), and took more pictures.

LB's first hour in the NICU

I came to around noon, looking and feeling rough.  It was hard to remember what had happened, but I did remember "you have a daughter," and I felt waves of joy and love.  A nurse, one of the ones who was both kind and efficient brought me a gingerale with a straw and it was the best thing I ever drank. B came bouncing into the room flashing pictures and telling me all about the NICU and about how she held LB.

In 1995, Julie and Hillary Goodridge had a daughter:

"When their daughter was born, she breathed in fluid and was sent to neonatal intensive care. Julie had a difficult caesarian and was in recovery for several hours. Even with a health care proxy, Hillary had difficulty gaining access to Julie and their newborn daughter at the hospital."[full text here]

As Julie lay in the OR, Hillary sought to see their daughter in the NICU.  She was turned away because  she had no legal relationship with the baby.  She waited until shift change and lied to a new nurse, saying she was her baby's aunt, and was allowed access. Hillary and Julie became the lead plaintiffs in the case Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health, the case that brought gay marriage to Massachusetts.

If not for Hillary and Julie, what would have happened to our LB?  Would she have laid alone in an isolette while B fought to get to her?  Would she have been denied that time sleeping against her mother's skin?  If things had gone worse, would she have died never being held by someone who loved her?

"We're married" were magic words for us, words that opened doors and produced wristbands.  These are the stories of unfortunate couples who possessed only lowly civil unions: Brittney Leon and Terri-Ann Simonelli, Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond, Kathryn Wilderotter and Linda Cole, and Bill Flanigan and Robert Daniel.  This latter case is particularly sad, because Robert died alone after Bill was denied access to his hospital bed.  In each of these cases the couples were in a legal domestic partnership.

The sad fact is that "we're in a domestic partnership" is not a magic phrase.  Say domestic partnership and very few people know exactly what rights you possess. Say marriage and everyone knows you should be at your spouse's bedside.  In 2010, the federal government offered additional guidance to hospitals receiving some types of federal funds, telling hospitals that they must allow patients to designate their own visitors.  That's a step forward, however, at least one of the cases above occurred after 2010.  The workers at the hospital front desk don't necessarily follow changes in federal guidance, but they do know what marriage means.  Marriage means you get the bracelet.

I am not equipped to speak to matters of theology.  I have freely chosen not to know what, if anything, exists after this life.  I am living this life with love: the intense love I feel for my wife and daughter, the joy I feel for my friends and coworkers, for clerks and bus drivers and randos, the perplexity and fascination I feel for those who claim to love me, but would deny my daughter a mother's love.

as a big girl

Thanks to Mombian for hosting the 9th Annual Blogging for LGBTQ Families!

A smartphone App for Queer Families

This piece from the New York Times "The New Old Age" blog caught my eye.  It describes the My Health Care Wishes app developed by the American Bar Association.  It lets you upload your advance directives that can then be accessed through your smartphone.  I'm intrigued.  This solution sounds much better than our current pile-of-papers-buried-in-the-closet system or the carry-your-docs-on-a-flashdrive option recommended by lawyerly types.

Many of us queer families are now of the married/2nd parent adoption/birth certificate level of official recognition.  But history has shown that it just takes that one hater in hospital intake to block access to a sick or dying loved one.  Of course you can demand access to hospital council, lie, or plead your case, but being a hospital patient or loved one of a patient is such a vulnerable position and you may have little time to work through official channels.  And, the comments on the blog post are filled with cases where paperwork was explicitly ignored.  Despite all that, having easy access to the documents we so carefully collected, when we most need them seems like a very good thing.

If I actually get it together to try this, I will report back.

Still Life: 4th Anniversary

Four years ago I had my first negative pregnancy test on my birthday.  The doctor called himself because there was a massive power outage in the medical complex and all the staff was evacuating the building.  He was very sweet, but I was never again able to answer any call from the fertility clinic number.  B and I had to set up an elaborate relay system where I would let the call go to voicemail, she would call and check my messages, and call me with the info.

Two days after that first call we got married. 

My ladies.

The Demographics of Gay Marriage

This Sunday's Time brought us the story "Gay Couples, Choosing to Say I Don't," which featured some cute couples with whom I am quite sympathetic.   They are all couples of the Times Style Section persuasion, meaning wealthy and well educated.  The demographics of gay married people are so in flux that it would be hard to make any substantive arguments, but that probably won't stop people from trying. 

It's been clear for a while that among straight marrieds, wealthy and middle-income people get married and low income people do not.  I'm not sure that pattern will hold among the newly marrying gays.  When they marry, low-income straights may experience a marriage penalty in the form of loss of benefits, without any tangible advantages.  In contrast, even low income gays may calculate that the family protections offered through marriage (and for some newly available insurance benefits for gay spouses) outweigh any losses.  Those same marriage protections may not seem as pressing to higher income gay couples, who can create legal protections with a good (expensive) lawyer.  So for lower-income gay couples marriage is a poor man's lawyer, while for wealthy gays not marrying is a cheap pre-nup.

Dispatches from Liberal Land

Maine: Yes on 1

I've been thinking a lot about my brothers and sisters in the non-marriage equality states, and I though I'd give a report from marriage equality land.  B and I have lived in Maryland and Rhode Island, and I've previously lived in Maine and Massachusetts, which is to say, I have my finger on the pulse.

After bitching to my favorite taxi driver about the fact that B and I can't file taxes together, the response: "Are you sure about that? It doesn't seem right.  I mean, you're married right?"

Upon complaining to LB's speech therapist on the Tuesday before the Supreme Court released the DOMA decision that we would have to pay tax on the full amount of any insurance benefits I got through B's plan: "Really?  When are they going to change that?"  My response: "Maybe in an hour."

Our neighborhood has been ablaze with discussion about the public activities of a local Southern Baptist congregation.  They are undertaking a church-planting mission here in Providence in order to "bring light to the darkness."  Someone posted a bunch of their informational materials to the listserve, which state that fewer than 2% of the population of Providence attend an Evangelical Christian service in any given week.  In our neighborhood, there are certainly lots of secular folks like us, but there's also a large population of Orthodox Jews and Catholics.  In any case, the church planters have a hard road ahead.

Listserv responses ranged from: "exclusionary religious groups should not be allowed to have gatherings in public spaces like parks (including the throwaway line 'wasn't DOMA just repealed'),"  to "don't we have a right not to be evangelized, and the church is too sly with their promotional materials," to a majority arguing that all have the right to say what they wish in public spaces, even if we don't like the message.

So what's next on agenda?  From equalitymaine.org:

• Build community among and empower LGBT people in rural Maine
• Create a more inclusive, supportive, and affirming climate in Maine for LGBT, questioning and gender non-conforming youth
• Ensure LGBT elders are safe, healthy, connected in the community, and free from discrimination
• Ensure transgender and gender non-conforming people are safe, healthy and free from discrimination and bias

Read the full plan by clicking here.
Sounds good to me!

What the Other Side Says

The conservative Catholic publication, The Remnant, offers this analysis.  Synopsis: Blame Justice Kennedy because he is a REALLY REALLY bad Catholic and the Church should punish him.

From conservative Catholic mom Kendra at Catholic All Year, "An open letter to my facebook friends" is here.  Synopsis: I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but you (my Catholic friends) need to love the sinner a little less and hate the sin a little more.

A statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints here. Synopsis: SCOTUS hates democracy, and traditional marriage today, traditional marriage tomorrow, traditional marriage forever.

From the Family Research Council: FAQs on the re-definination of marriage here, and a roundup of FRC press statements here.  Synopsis: Public opinion will now turn against gay marriage, as Americans  observe the devastating consequences of gay marriage (specific examples TBA).

National Organization for Marriage: "What you can do today to help save marriage" is here.  Synopsis: We didn't totally lose and now we're taking it to the people with our quixotic drive for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Concerned Women of America responds here.  The money quote (and writing that makes me chortle like a 14-year-old boy): "Five Justices of the Supreme Court have just compromised the entire initiative process with this decision."

Analysis from MASSResistance here, with a particularly interesting section towards the end titled "How the pro-family movement botched these cases." Synopsis: The "pro-family movement" needs to take the gloves off and stop pretending they are cool with gay people and shit.

From Southern Baptist Russell Moore here. Synopsis: We are all sinners in the hands of an angry God, and if God is angry at the gays, don't worry he's also angry at you.

Pinterest board for Marriage: One Man One Woman Only! here.  Findings: for as much as conservatives seem to love pinterest, the anti-gay marriage pins seems sadly lacking.

And, of course, there is Call2Fall, an organization asking Christians to beg God's forgiveness for sin-y stuff (I'm not quite sure).  I'm just going to let the graphic do the talking (you should really check it out) here.

In my personal conservative blog watch, I've observed that the conservative chatter specifically about/against gay marriage has declined a lot since 2007 and the 2nd Bush election.  Some anti-gay marriage folks are really wrestling to reconcile their religious teachings with compassion for the actual gay people they know.  I would characterize the people who are posting in this vein as "the crisis of the compassionate conservative."

Other people who aren't posting publicly don't wish to appear publicly mean-spirited by expressing their beliefs, and some don't wish to open themselves up to public mocking, ridicule, or accusations.  Examples from The Loveliest Hour, C. Jane Kendrick, and an older post from the Prop 8 fight by Elizabeth Esther.

A particularly interesting subset of people are those who are now rejecting "government marriage" and instead pursuing only religious "covenant marriage," but I'm leaving that discussion for another day.

SCOTUS PSA!

If you're anxiously awaiting the Supreme Court decisions on Prop 8 and DOMA, and you haven't checked out SCOTUS Blog, you should definitely take a look.  You can find SCOTUS Blog here.  They usually start live blogging at 9:00am on decision days, and they will be doing so tomorrow (Tuesday, June 25).  They have a great live blog, which makes a weirdly addictive clicking noise every time that it updates.  They also take reader questions and provide both law-speak and regular-people explanations of the decisions.

And here you can find some analysis from The Onion, and here a for real LGBTQ response to today's voting rights ruling.

Year of the Gayby

It's been a pretty good year to be a gay person and a gay parent.

Gayby with bear.

For us, gay marriage is now available in our former home city and our current home city.  Gay folks are getting a lot of public support from our straight allies (thank you Mr. President).  We're watching the Supreme Court with a not unhopeful eye. The Boy Scouts have acknowledged that gay kids are people worthy of inclusion, even if they think gay adults are sketchy pervs.  Cue rainbow-hued unicorns gamboling through fields of non-GMO wildflowers...

So what's not to like.  Sadly for me, much of my professional training was dedicated to the following statement: "Never trust a narrative of progress."  By which I mean, if you were living in the cosmopolitan, multicultural paradise of Sarajevo in 1989, life was good, and if there were some hints of danger, really, what could go wrong in such a place?  By 1992 Sarajevans found out.  History is replete with similar examples.  But my point isn't to get all apocalyptic on you, or even to sell you hand knitted go-bags made from sustainable yak fur now available in my etsy shop (jk!).

My point is that we still have a long road ahead and its obstacles are unequally distributed.  As a queer lefty, I've heard a fair amount of talk that gay marriage only serves the gay elite.  Even though I have my own ideological issues with marriage, I disagree with that argument.  On average gay families are poor and more vulnerable than our straight counterparts, and marriage can be a cheap way to secure some basic rights.

But marriage won't solve all our problems.  As a community of queer people we are vulnerable.  Despite our current popularity (collectively we are the geeky girl who had a makeover and got asked out by the captain of the football team), we are still an unequal, and sometimes distrusted and despised minority.  This inequality is particularly burdensome for those who also occupy some other vulnerable category(s).  Now that we are riding high, we should make this the year of the QUEER and old, and disabled, and young, and chronically ill, and undocumented, and incarcerated, and poor, and don't forget our trans friends and allies (and I just couldn't fit person first language into that sentence).  And don't forget that gay people face many mental health problems, particularly high rates of addiction.  Even for those of us who don't fit into a category that adds additional complications to our gay experience, life can throw us into situations that make us vulnerable.

For our family, our strongest sense of vulnerability came in the days before and after LB's birth.  She came before our paperwork was signed and I was very sick.  I never asked my half-formed questions about what would happen to our family in a variety of medical worst case scenarios.  I had been in the hospital for ten days, when the doctor finally said it was time for LB to come.  I was 29w and had been desperately holding on, but by that moment I felt so sick that I new that it truly was time.  We went into the birth counting on the kindness of strangers to protect our family because that was all we had.

I was unconscious for about five hours after LB's birth.  In this, our experience was similar to Hillary and Julie Goodridge, the lead plaintiffs in Goodridge et al. v. Dept. of Health (the Massachusetts gay marriage case).  While her partner was unconscious, Hillary Goodridge was denied access to her baby daughter in the NICU.  She only gained access by lying and saying she was the baby's aunt.  In our case, B. was quickly sent up to the NICU.  She was the first family member to hold LB and did kangaroo care while I was still in recovery.  The hospital staff treated her like the mom that she is.

Why were things different? Broader social acceptance of gay people, a progressive teaching hospital, a recent lawsuit in our city against a different hospital that denied a gay man access to his dying partner?  Whatever the reason, I was thankful, but also pained and saddened by the thought that our girl could have been born and died alone.  What if she had been sicker?  What if B. hadn't been allowed in?

Anyone who's gay can be gay and vulnerable.  As we seek to built on these recent victories, I hope we can also find ways to share the burdens.  And for me, personally, that is a lofty idea that I'm not quite sure how to put into practice.  Suggestions solicited.

Check out the many other posts for Blogging for LGBT Families Day at Mombian.

"because you look so fine/ and I really want to make you mine"

In breaking news, Same Sex marriage bill passed Rhode Island Senate by a wide margin. Easy passage is expected in the House, and the bill has support of the Governor.  B and I must have the touch, first Maryland, now Rhode Island.  If we moved to every state in the Union (and Puerto Rico), do you think they would all pass gay marriage?

Today was a beautiful Baltimore day, sunny and warm, with just enough cool breeze.  My students and I went on a tour of historic West Baltimore.  We saw lovely boulevards and historic homes, abandoned orphanages, vacant homes, schools loud with children, churches, brutalist buildings, housing project with attempts at modernist finishes, and the wide open spaces of urban renewal.  Through it all cherry blossoms rained down on us.

At home, LB got a diagnosis of pneumonia on Monday, after a few days of albuterol induced madness.  She is rallying, but it's not a time that I want to be away from my ladies.  As my time in Baltimore winds down, I find myself at the same hotel where B and I stayed when we first visited the city to look for a place to live.  I'm hoping I'll sleep the sleep of closure tonight.

Gay Parents/ Single Parents: Getting Past the Gay Poster Family

Too bad blogger won't let me draw a venn diagram that would save me a few hundred words.

As I've said before, I'm very excited about the upcoming SCOTUS cases focused on gay marriage, and I hope this is the gay marriage moment.  However, the conservative argument for gay marriage is already setting my teeth on edge.  Shortly after I heard about this public service campaign targeting young moms, I read this article in the NYTimes about the American Academy of Pediatrics coming out in support of gay marriage.  I found this sentence from the article very interesting: “'Many studies compare wealthy, well-educated lesbian mothers to single heterosexual mothers instead of married couples,' Dr. Marks said." Maybe I'm reaching, but this sentence seemed to signal all sorts of unspoken ideas about who lesbian mothers are (partnered, wealthy, educated, white, older) and who single mothers are (straight, poor, minority, uneducated).  These assumptions seem neither accurate nor useful.  Lesbian mothers are partnered and they are signal, they come in all colors, are older and younger, and richer and poorer.  Shockingly, a lesbian mother can also be a single mother!

There is a certain political expediency in presenting gay families with kids as a model minority, but I think it's a poor strategy for the long haul. Gay families are as good as straight families, but that also means that we're as messed up, complicated, and imperfect as all other families.  Trying to present ourselves as some non-existent ideal family (an ideal that easily slides into racism and classism), just sets us up for the backlash when our enemies get hip to the fact that gay families can face divorce and poverty and a wealth of other issues just like our straight counterparts.

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." If I was to be so cheesy as to having a parenting motto, that would be it.  As for individual moms and dads and imas and memes and babas, the goal of perfection hurts gay families as a group.  The only perfection is our love for our kids, which outlives exhaustion, frustration, and even anger.  That love doesn't differentiate between one parent, two, or more.  It doesn't care about color or money or age.  Love and imperfection, that is family.

An interesting commentary from a single mom can be found here, and here is a link to Melissa Harris-Perry's take on the the NYC public health campaign.

"...those conceived by passionate, heterosexual coupling"

Life after gay marriage: babies lie with Elmos, Elmos lie with kittycats, etc.

And suddenly, thanks to the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage and their amicus brief, I have a new phrase for my SCOTUS drinking game.

The briefs that are anti-DOMA and Prop 8 have reminded me that marriage is fundamentally a conservative institutions, something I have been trying hard to forget.  The brief from the American Historical Association reminds readers that for our orthodox Protestant ancestors in Colonial America, marriage was a civil institution rather than a religious one.  The AHA also examines the history of couverture (a married woman has no legal status as an individual) and its eventual rejection as a legal doctrine in the US.  The fact that Protestants in early America shaped their ideas of marriage in accordance with their hatred of the Papists and the fact that we have become enlightened enough to allow married women their own legal identities really doesn't leave me feeling that high on the institution of marriage.

On the other side the arguments are far ranging, most seem to reflect a lack of experience with actual LGBT people.  For example the brief submitted by the Concerned Women of America explains why gay people and not "politically powerless," a designation that might allow gay people to be considered a protected class of people.  Apparently, now that we've won a few political victory and President Obama is out and proud as our friend, we don't need any additional protections.  CWA also tries to make the case that LGBT people are rich political elites.  Yes, there are some rich and politically powerful gay people, but the argument that we are all rich and powerful and therefore can't be considered an oppressed class or minority group seems to drift toward popular characterizations of Jews by anti-semites.  Never mind that most statistical data suggests exactly the opposite, that LGBT families are on average poorer than their straight counterparts.

The brief from the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage raises issues that I find more discussion worthy.  One interesting argument raised by the CPM is that "man and woman marriages" produce "natural families" that do not require state intervention or supervision.  The implication is that with the rise of alternative families, the "natural family," which I will call the straight family, will face heightened scrutiny and intervention from the state.  It is certainly true that straight people can establish their families much more easily than other families.  In states with common law marriage, a man and woman can simply hold themselves out as married and they are married.  They will likely need to apply for birth certificates for their children, but no one will challenge them in this process, even if they show up in an ER with no paperwork.

In contrast, gay families depend on the government to legitimize our relationships.  However, I would argue that we only require this government intervention because we are an oppressed minority group whose families are seen an illegitimate.  If we were not a stigmatized group, we could simply use the common law model and declare ourselves families and act accordingly.

I think CPM's argument is much smarter and point to a much deeper philosophical divide than the many varieties of "God hats fags."  CPM hits a libertarian/natural rights/common sense conservatism that is very powerful in American culture, but hopefully it is too subtle to get much attention.

Edited to add below, because I had to leave to go do daycare pickup.

In many of the pro-DOMA/pro-Prop 8 briefs, the children of gay people are afterthoughts, asides, and oddities.  In the minds of the authors of these briefs gay life is a huge dance party of rich white gay may in boxer briefs with a few darker, poorer, female-er gays standing on the sidelines with our kids (precise method of conception, and passion therein, unknown).  The reality is we're here, we're queer with kids, and there will only be more of us in the future.  And our kids, mostly, but not always, conceived by means other than passionate, heterosexual coupling, need some sort of uniform recognition of their parentage.  We need that recognition in all fifty states and we need it to not cost thousands of dollars.  For straight married couples, the state presumes that the possibility of shared biological parentage establishes parentage.  The state does not require mandatory paternity tests to establish parentage, and in cases where a man parents and then finds out he is not actually the biological parent of his child, the law often still views him as a parent, with all the attached rights and responsibilities.  While I'm not comfortable with the idea that marriage should be required to establish parentage, that seems like a move backward, marriage should be one means by which gay couples can establish their intention to parent together.