This Mother's Day I consider myself incredibly fortunate. I have a mother who is in good health and who I love. In my professional life, I have the opportunity to work every day on behalf of great families - mothers and fathers -- from all over the country.
And I am doubly blessed to be the parent of three-year-old twin boys. My sons are doubly blessed, too. They have two moms who love them very much. There are those in our country who would argue that point. But the truth is, my sons were brought into a family where they were planned for, wanted and loved. They have stability and permanency and support. They are encouraged to be polite, thoughtful and creative. They are taught that love, not hate, should guide their actions.
While there are millions of households like mine throughout this country - homes where we eat Cheerios, work to manage evening baths for toddlers, go to the park, attend gatherings with family and friends and read books at bedtime - my family, and other families with lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender parents, live our lives without the full legal protections that other families are afforded.
Even more painful than not having basic legal protections, in some places, our families are being used to wage a political and cultural war. Under the guise of protecting children, the radical right is using our families as a "wedge issue" and this battle leaves our children as its casualties.
In Texas, for example, there is a bill pending that would ban lesbian, gay and bisexual people from serving as foster parents. It also calls for investigation into the private lives of current foster parents to determine if they are lesbian, gay or bisexual. The proponents of this measure claim that they are "protecting children."
I wonder whose children they are talking about. Is it the many children with special needs who were unable to be placed in any other foster home than those with two moms or two dads? Is it the boy, aged 13 who couldn't get a foster placement, except with two loving dads who were willing to do the hard work of building a loving stable environment for a boy who had never had that? Is it the crack-addicted baby, just a few weeks old, who needed round the clock care and attention that only two moms were willing to take on?
The simple truth is that these anti-gay adoption and fostering measures have nothing to do with protecting children. It is simply an excuse given by deeply homophobic legislators who are unwilling to look at what the empirical data about children raised in same-sex households has been telling us for decades: that our children are as healthy, happy and well-adjusted as children being raised by heterosexual parents.
All the social science research shows that children raised by lesbian and gay parents do just fine. In fact, leading child welfare organizations have supported lesbian- and gay-headed families, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Child Welfare League of America, North American Council on Adoptable Children, American Psychological Association, American Bar Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychoanalytic Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians. And it's not just child welfare professionals who know and understand that children are best served when they have parents who provide them with loving and stable homes.
Anyone who knows our families understands that protecting our children and protecting our families is a simple matter of justice. They understand that our values are "family values" and they know that love, not hate, makes a family. But to fundamentally alter the debate on gay civil rights and legal protections for LGBT families, we need to have these conversations all across this country - in red states and blue states; in rural and urban and suburban areas; in the corporate arena, in communities of faith and in our children's schools.
The more our families are known, the more allies we enlist in our battle, the faster the tide will change and we will have the protections we deserve to keep our families strong.
What better time than Mother's Day to continue this national conversation?
Written By Jennifer Chrisler
Jennifer Chrisler is the executive director of the Family Pride Coalition, the only national non-profit organization exclusively dedicated to securing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents and their families.
And I am doubly blessed to be the parent of three-year-old twin boys. My sons are doubly blessed, too. They have two moms who love them very much. There are those in our country who would argue that point. But the truth is, my sons were brought into a family where they were planned for, wanted and loved. They have stability and permanency and support. They are encouraged to be polite, thoughtful and creative. They are taught that love, not hate, should guide their actions.
While there are millions of households like mine throughout this country - homes where we eat Cheerios, work to manage evening baths for toddlers, go to the park, attend gatherings with family and friends and read books at bedtime - my family, and other families with lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender parents, live our lives without the full legal protections that other families are afforded.
Even more painful than not having basic legal protections, in some places, our families are being used to wage a political and cultural war. Under the guise of protecting children, the radical right is using our families as a "wedge issue" and this battle leaves our children as its casualties.
In Texas, for example, there is a bill pending that would ban lesbian, gay and bisexual people from serving as foster parents. It also calls for investigation into the private lives of current foster parents to determine if they are lesbian, gay or bisexual. The proponents of this measure claim that they are "protecting children."
I wonder whose children they are talking about. Is it the many children with special needs who were unable to be placed in any other foster home than those with two moms or two dads? Is it the boy, aged 13 who couldn't get a foster placement, except with two loving dads who were willing to do the hard work of building a loving stable environment for a boy who had never had that? Is it the crack-addicted baby, just a few weeks old, who needed round the clock care and attention that only two moms were willing to take on?
The simple truth is that these anti-gay adoption and fostering measures have nothing to do with protecting children. It is simply an excuse given by deeply homophobic legislators who are unwilling to look at what the empirical data about children raised in same-sex households has been telling us for decades: that our children are as healthy, happy and well-adjusted as children being raised by heterosexual parents.
All the social science research shows that children raised by lesbian and gay parents do just fine. In fact, leading child welfare organizations have supported lesbian- and gay-headed families, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Child Welfare League of America, North American Council on Adoptable Children, American Psychological Association, American Bar Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychoanalytic Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians. And it's not just child welfare professionals who know and understand that children are best served when they have parents who provide them with loving and stable homes.
Anyone who knows our families understands that protecting our children and protecting our families is a simple matter of justice. They understand that our values are "family values" and they know that love, not hate, makes a family. But to fundamentally alter the debate on gay civil rights and legal protections for LGBT families, we need to have these conversations all across this country - in red states and blue states; in rural and urban and suburban areas; in the corporate arena, in communities of faith and in our children's schools.
The more our families are known, the more allies we enlist in our battle, the faster the tide will change and we will have the protections we deserve to keep our families strong.
What better time than Mother's Day to continue this national conversation?
Written By Jennifer Chrisler
Jennifer Chrisler is the executive director of the Family Pride Coalition, the only national non-profit organization exclusively dedicated to securing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents and their families.
Article provided in partnership with GayWebMonkey.com.
