Archive for October, 2006

Many are familiar with the Syracuse Cultural Workers’ poster “How to Build Community.” [Scroll down a bit to see it; you can click a link to see it enlarged.] I’ve long harbored a scheme to get a bunch of their laminated posters and guerrilla-post them around my neighborhood. I’m just saving up for a [...]

Ways of seeing

Special Uncle facilitates a fresh perspective.
One wonders whether the frequent realignment of the kiddle point of view, literally, has an impact on their capacity to conceptualize a broad range of possibilities? That, and the tablula rasa brain. Buddhists call it “beginner’s mind,” and revere it. In her lecture on beginner’s mind, Abbess [...]

Yes, someone–a former hacker & current nightclub owner–did indeed bronze a turkey baster as a gift to lesbian friends who’d just had a baby. Caption: “A Miracle of Modern Science!”
I have been able to co-parent with my partner as a result of donor insemination (DI), also called alternative insemination (AI). As a result, I [...]

The National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study t-shirt.
Not that any of us lesbian parents are surprised. But it’s nice to have a good, rigorous psychiataric study or two to cite, when heckled.
Sunday morning I went to my old friend’s Unitarian Universalist church to hear Dr. Nanette Gartrell talk about her ongoing longitudinal study of lesbian families [...]

Hope springs eternal

Tape relocated from some fruit. It reads: Organically grown.
Several years back I was transfixed by a radio interview with Sandra Steingraber, who was talking about her book, Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood. There’s an informative review of the book here on Seventh Generation; you might know her from a previous work, [...]

Bathtime checklist

A parental version of What’s On My iPod or some such thing like that. In descending order of importance, most to least:
kiddie towel with the cute hood thingy that keeps ‘em cozy;
pennywhistle (from the Emerald Isle itself, via the Mother Outlaw; I’m abysmal at it but practice makes perfect, and she hasn’t begged me [...]

San Francisco literati on on the move at the LitCrawl, 10.14.06.
This past weekend, yrs truly had the honor of reading in public about my madcap journey to lesbian fatherhood. Litquake, San Francisco’s week-long literary festival, is dotted with readings, workshops, and performances celebrating writers and writing. Capping it off is LitCrawl, an inspired multi-venue [...]

Now we are three

Toward the end of a week at my sister’s cabin in the Sierras, we spent a bucolic afternoon at a nearby alpine lake. A trio of mallard hens swam up to us at the shore, and we fed them our entire bag of peanuts. Make Way for Ducklings has been a favorite of late, so [...]




    LD's No on California Prop 8 fundraising

    Goal Thermometer no-on-8-cutie



    The time to step up is now.



    See that cute kid there on the right? My son. The day, this July, that my partner and I got hitched. It was our fourteenth anniversary. Help.



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    Featured election news/analysis:

    From "Gay marriages in California surpass those in Massachusetts,", Jessica Garrison, on 7 Oct., 2008, at the Los Angeles Times.



    Data released Monday (6 Oct 08) by UCLA's Williams Institute found that an estimated 11, 000 same-sex couples were married in CA since June 17, when the court began to allow them. (Since May 2004, over 10,000 have married in Massachusetts.)



    Pastor Jim Garlow of Skyline Church in La Mesa, who has been rallying voters to pass the constitutional amendment, said: "The fact that there are big numbers doesn't change the reality that it is still bad for the country."



    Garlow, who along with hundreds of other Christians, is observing a fast until election day as a way to show his support for the proposed amendment, added: "There are enormous numbers of people doing cocaine right now. . . . Simply because large numbers of people are doing something does not make it right."
    "Foes of gay-marriage ban say poll shows Prop. 8 leading," by Jessica Garrison, 8 Oct., 2008, in the Los Angeles Times:
    The opposition has enjoyed a healthy lead in several surveys taken by polling organizations that do not have a stake in the campaign. But officials with the No on 8 campaign held a conference call with reporters Tuesday to announce that their own poll showed the measure would pass by four points. Opponents attributed the result to fewer television ads, which is, in turn, a result of the No on 8 campaign falling behind in fundraising.
    From Geoff Kors, Equality California, in an email to EQCA and No on 8 supporters, 7 Oct., 2008:
    Our worst nightmares are coming true.



    Today we learned of the massive $25.4 million our opponents have raised so far. They are using this war chest to broadcast lies: 24/7 and up and down the state of California.



    And the polls show the lies are working. We need your donation now.



    Yesterday’s CBS 51 poll shows that:



    “…likely California voters overall now favor passage of Proposition 8 by a five-point margin, 47 percent to 42 percent. Ironically, a CBS 5 poll eleven days prior found a five-point margin in favor of the measure's opponents.”



    People change their minds about Proposition 8 when they hear the lie that churches will lose their tax-free status if they won’t marry same-sex couples – EVEN THOUGH THIS IS NOT TRUE!



    So this is crunch time. With less than a month before the election, we must get on the air now to answer these lies and swing votes back to our side.



    And the ONLY way to do that it to raise more money. The generous $15.8 million that our supporters have given isn’t enough. Not when the other side has nearly $10 million more than we do and the fundraising gap is growing.


    Earlier:



    Ellen DeGeneres: "My Political Point... And I Do Have One," on 24 Sept., 2008 at her site.



    Previous election news/analysis links can be found at this here Election news links page.

    Lesbian Dad 101

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