Toronto, Canada. 2008. Pride Week.
Welcome to September, everyone! I hope it’s a great month for you.
September 2011
137 posts
August 2011
154 posts
On January 1, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale (right) and the Reverend Canon Mally Ewing Lloyd became the first lesbian couple married by the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. “We didn’t get married to have an impact on the LGBTQ community,” Ragsdale says. “We believe in the sacrament and the notion that this marriage will not only enhance the ministries each of us already has but will, in ways yet to evolve, take on a life, and ministries, of its own.” Ragsdale became the first female dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in 2009 and has served on the national boards of several progressive organizations. Since 2008, Lloyd has overseen operations for one of the Church’s largest and most politically active dioceses, representing eastern Massachusetts in the church’s highest legislative body, the General Convention, and serving on its national program, budget and finance committee. “I think particularly about the sisterhood of women who have suffered and dared to be open about who they are so that those of us who come behind have a slightly easier path,” Lloyd says. “But it’s not easy enough yet. We can’t rest.” –DP
Picture of the protest against the Sex and the City conference organised by Anglican Mainstream featuring Joseph Nicolosi and Jeffrey Satinover which advocated the cure of homosexuality - Emmanuel Centre, Masham Street, London, 25 April 2009
American Family
Pasadena Rally - Throop Unitarian
May 2009
Veteran artist and performer JD Samson first achieved success as one-third of the feminist electro-punk band Le Tigre. In 2007, Samson and bandmate Johanna Fateman branched off from Le Tigre and founded the DJ/production/remix team MEN. Now a Brooklyn-based band and art/performance collective, MEN focuses on the “energy of live performance and the radical potential of dance music.” In 2008, MEN expanded to incorporate the live band Hirsute, with whom they released the album Talk About Body in February 2011. Through MEN, Samson hopes “that the community is inspired to be real and sincere and to follow their dreams. I would love to help create a collective reality check. What we do with it I’m not sure—but I want to think about our disconnects with our mutual heart.” –CM
Ruling: Woman can seek custody →
omaha.com
LINCOLN — A woman involved in a 20-year, same-sex relationship has the right to seek custody and visitation rights for a child born to her now-estranged partner, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The case marks the first time the state court has provided guidance in the emotional area of custody and visitation rights of same-sex couples who have children.
Under state law, Teri Latham of Omaha could not adopt the boy born to her partner or claim legal standing as a parent because the state doesn’t recognize same-sex unions.
But the Supreme Court ruled Friday that she had the right to argue she had, in essence, become a parent through her parenting of a boy born to her partner, Susan Schwerdtfeger, in 2001 through in-vitro fertilization.
Latham helped plan and finance the birth, helped choose a sperm donor with Schwerdtfeger and helped raise the child until the couple broke up in 2006. She was provided visits with the boy for a year and a half, when the biological mother broke off any contact with him.
The ruling hinged on the common law legal principle of “in loco parentis,” in which a nonbiological or nonadoptive person — typically a stepparent or grandparent — can become a legal parent by assuming the obligations of a parent and through a relationship with a child.
Latham’s attorney, Tyler Block of Omaha, said the court ruling should provide clarity not only in custody and visitation cases involving same-sex couples but others as well.
“They’ve applied age-old law to this particular situation,” Block said. “I think they’ve gotten it exactly right.”
The court ruled that Douglas County District Judge Marlon Polk had erred by dismissing Latham’s lawsuit seeking custody and visitation rights.
It also ordered the case back to the district judge to determine whether Latham had established “strong psychological bonds” and, in the best interests of the child, should be awarded those rights.
The boy, in an interview with the judge, said he didn’t miss Latham and didn’t want to spend time with her.
But Latham’s attorney said that statement should be taken “with a grain of salt,” given that his client had been denied visits with the child.
“She’s been a loving parent to this child since he was born,” Block said. “She hasn’t been able to see this child for a very long time. I know Teri is going to be ecstatic to see him and spend time with him.”
The court, in its ruling, noted that “a biological parent’s rights do not extend to erasing a relationship between her partner and her child which she voluntarily created and actively fostered simplybecause after the parties’ separation, she regretted having done so.”
Schwerdtfeger’s attorney, Angela Tiritilli, said Friday’s ruling is frustrating to her client because it will mean another year or two of legal steps to determine whether Latham deserves visits with a boy she hasn’t seen in more than two years.
“This is a child,” Tiritilli said. “There’s the law — and how it plays out in reality.”
Friday’s 15-page ruling, written by Supreme Court Judge Lindsey Miller-Lerman, cited similar cases in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in which the nonbiological parent in a same-sex couple had won visitation rights.
A national gay rights group, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, filed a brief in the case on behalf of Latham. That group has argued that lesbian couples deserve the same custody and visitation rights as married couples.
Gay Pride Manchester 2007
While the faces of Botoxified housewives and spray tanned twenty-somethings proliferate on reality television, there’s at least one refreshingly real presence on the tube. Enter Elizabeth Falkner, chef/partner of Citizen Cake and Orson in San Francisco, a recent judge on Bravo’s Top Chef: Just Desserts, a 2009 competitor on Top Chef Masters and a three-time competitor on Food Network Challenge, among other gigs. Falkner founded her flagship bakery in 1997, which has since been awarded recommendations by Michelin. By expanding into savory fare with Orson, Falkner proved she’s about more than just desserts. She says it’s her loved ones who keep her going. “What inspires me are all the talented people around me who I genuinely care for and who are wanting me to do my work better every day.” –SJ
A woman who’s known for carting around town with the same sign you see here, fronts up the Northampton Pride Parade
“War is not the answer”
The sign reads “All we are saying is give peace a [chance] / we need a Department of Peace / War is NOT the ANSWER!”
“That we choose to call ourselves lesbians or gay men, that we decide what this designation means to us, is itself a challenge to how same-sex loving has most often been defined in our culture. For by and large we have been the defined not the self-definers, the object of others’ mythmaking rather than the creators of our own mythology.”
—Christine Downing, Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love, 1989. (from Lesbian Quotations, Rosemary Silva)
For you enjoyment, a set of portraits taken on Saturday 27 June 2009 at the Northalstead Pride Fest in Chicago.
“As a queer woman working in the feminist movement, I’ve witnessed many instances where today’s women’s movement still isn’t as inclusive of lesbian, queer, bi or trans people as we can and need to be. Conversely, in the LGBT rights movement, I’ve also witnessed healthy doses of sexism,” observes Yana Walton, Vice President of Communications for the Women’s Media Center, the organization dedicated to making sure women’s stories are told truthfully in the news. A veteran activist, Walton has worked with GLAAD, the Utah Pride Center and Planned Parenthood of Utah. Walton is a skilled analyst adept at training others in effective messaging and campaigning against homophobia, transphobia and sexism in the media. “In my daily work, I try to keep my eye on the biggest prize of justice for all, and focus on what our movements share in common. Lesbian, queer and trans issues are women’s issues,” she says. –KL
Part of the crowd at the One Iowa Rally on Iowa State’s Campus, Friday April 3rd [2008], after Iowa’s Supreme Court unanimously decided to void the gay marriage ban in Iowa!
