Happy New Year from Green Dads!

Happy New Year everyone!

The 10 most popular posts at Green Dads in 2008:

1. Chef in Shades
2. 2009 Pride and Joy Families Weekend Conference
3. Five Reasons Why the Opponents of Gay Marriage Will Ultimately Fail
4. Home with a sick kid
5. America, Get Over Yourself
6. Green Fall Activity, Take a Hike
7. Single Men Choosing Surrogacy
8. New Gay Dad: Clay Aiken
9. Yoga Classes Challenged at Upstate NY High School
10. Birth Certificates to Reflect NY Gay-Marriage Move

photo credit: aNantaB

Easy Way to Contribute to Marriage Equality New York

A donor has agreed to give $1 for every New Yorker that subscribes to the MENY newsletter between NOW and December 31st (up to a maximum of $5,000). This is a great way of raising necessary funds for Marriage Equality while also building our grassroots efforts in New York State.
So, what can you do?

1) Check over your subscription by following the link at the bottom of this email.
2) Send this link (and fundraising explanation) to all your friends, family and neighbors and ask them to subscribe using the link below.

Act Now, today is the last day of this offer.

http://www.marriageequalityny.org/subscribe.html

Wordless Wednesday: Oh Joy! An Earthworm Nursery

Change.org: First Round Voting Ends Today

In an earlier post I asked you to vote up an idea for change titled All Children Deserve Loving Families.

The first round of voting ends today, 12/31/2008 at midnight Pacific time.  This idea is currently in 6th place in the gay rights category and needs 214 more votes to make it to the second round.

Please go and vote it up today.  Please promote this idea by emailing it to all your friends, sharing it on social networking sites, and promoting it on you blog.

Adoption Ban in Arkansas Challenged

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — More than a dozen families sued Tuesday to challenge a new Arkansas law banning unmarried couples living together from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

The Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families in Pulaski County Circuit Court seeking to overturn Act 1, which was approved by voters in last month’s general election.

“Act 1 violates the state’s legal duty to place the best interest of children above all else,” said Marie-Bernarde Miller, a Little Rock attorney in the lawsuit.

The group sued on behalf of 29 adults and children from more than a dozen families, including a grandmother who lives with her same-sex partner of nine years and is the only relative able and willing to adopt her grandchild, who is now in Arkansas state care.  Read More

From Associated Press: ACLU of Arkansas Sue Over Adoption Restrictions, 12/30/2008.

Are Gay People Likable Enough?

But we’re not there yet. Warren’s defamation of gay people illustrates why, as does our president-elect’s rationalization of it. When Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the “wide range of viewpoints” in a “diverse and noisy and opinionated” America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a “viewpoint” defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable.

It is even more toxic in a year when that group has been marginalized and stripped of its rights by ballot initiatives fomenting precisely such fears. “You’ve got to give them hope” was the refrain of the pioneering 1970s gay politician Harvey Milk, so stunningly brought back to life by Sean Penn on screen this winter. Milk reminds us that hope has to mean action, not just words.

By the historical standards of presidential hubris, Obama’s disingenuous defense of his tone-deaf invitation to Warren is nonetheless a relatively tiny infraction. It’s no Bay of Pigs. But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.

From a NY Times.com editorial today titled You’re Likable Enough, Gay People.

I thought this was an interesting article and it made some good points but I could not figure out the reason for the title.  I read the article and then scanned back through it several times and missed the point of the title.

Can anyone enlighten me please?

Adoption Day 4.0

Today is the fourth anniversary of the day we finalized the adoption of our son. It was supposed to be a day that will always have pleasant memories associated with it. However, all three of us suffered through Christmas and the following days that year with a series of illnesses. If I remember correctly it all started with very bad colds, could have been flu and ended with stomach bugs.

When the happy morning arrived Darius was screaming and unhappy, and his dads did not feel like going anywhere either. However, we did not want to do anything to mess up our long awaited court date. So we took whatever medications we could find to make the symptoms better and packed into the car for our appointment with the judge. A small group of people were attending with us, a couple friends, D’s first foster family, his caseworker and the law guardian. Thankfully the entire proceeding was short and uneventful. We dug deep down for some smiles for pictures, so our photo memories of it aren’t too bad. The folks that came to share it with us wanted to take us to lunch to celebrate but we came home and spent the rest of the day in bed.

We can now look back on it sort of fondly but the memory will always be colored by how sick we all were that day.  Have you ever had a long anticipated event altered by unforseen circumstances like sickness?

Single Men Choosing Surrogacy

Here is an interesting article from CNN on single men choosing to become fathers through surrogacy:

Jeff Walker says from as far back as he can remember, he always wanted to be a father.

“It was always something I knew, from the time I was a child.” Just like his 3-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who says she wants to be a mommy someday, Jeff says, “I knew I wanted to be a daddy.”

Walker, a Manhattan music executive, says he and his partner had talked about adopting a baby years ago. But after three emotionally draining, failed attempts at adoption, they decided to turn to surrogacy. They contacted Circle Surrogacy, a Boston agency that specializes in gay clients. Their child was conceived with a donor egg, and then the embryo implanted in the surrogate, or carrier.

Read More

All Children Deserve Loving Families: Vote at Change.org

Dana from Mombian was invited by Change.org to submit an “Idea for Change in America”.  Change.org will present the top 10 ideas for social change to the Obama administration on inauguration day.  Her idea is titled: All Children Deserve Loving Families and here is what she had to say:

Every child in America deserves a loving family. The rights of children to find a loving home through adoption or fostering shall not be withheld on account of the prospective parent’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. An adult in a committed relationship with the sole legal parent of a child, whom the legal parent acknowledges as a second parent, shall be recognized under the law as such, even if the two parents later separate. Furthermore, the relationship of a parent to a child, if recognized by a state or jurisdiction, shall be recognized by all states and jurisdictions.

Please visit Change.org and vote it up!

Promote this idea and post the widget above on your webpage.

TV Movie: Prayers For Bobby on Lifetime

The movie Prayers for Bobby comes to Lifetime Television in January and stars Sigourney Weaver.  Prayers for Bobby is base on a 1998 best-selling book, a true story about Mary Griffith and her gay son Bobby who commits suicide because of her religious intolerance.  The show follows Mary’s journey from homophobe to gay rights activist.  Make sure and have a some tissues handy before you watch the trailer.

I think this deserves more mainstream airtime than Lifetime, or a theatrical release to reach more people. What do you think?

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