ABC's What Would You Do? Tackles Homophobia Towards Gay Families

Even though the set-up took place in Texas, things definitely don't happen the way some might expect. Get a tissue.

(Tipped by JMG reader Gavin)

Brooklyn Maternity Shop Offer Discounts For Lesbians Moms Only

A lesbian-owned maternity shop in Brooklyn's Park Slope is offering a discount to lesbian moms only, although the owner doesn't ask patrons to "prove" that they are gay.

While a few people have looked "questioningly" at the placard advertising the unique discount, Paperno says the overall response to the lesbians-only promo is positive. "People are tickled by it," Paperno says, "And I love that response more than anything. It's fun." While some people may not share Paperno's sense of humor, she says her "girl's club" discount is one of the perks of running her own store. "It's not politically correct," Paperno acknowledges with a laugh, "but neither am I. Never have been, never will be. This is my store, and I can choose to do this discount for the people who need it most."

The Freepers are having a field day with this one.

FBI Makes Arrest In Lisa Miller Case

The FBI have made an arrest in connection with Lisa Miller, the "ex-gay" mother who vanished with her daughter in 2009 after courts awarded custody of the child to Janet Jenkins, her former partner. When Miller failed to surrender Isabella Jenkins-Miller, now age nine, to her ex, police issued a warrant for parental kidnapping. Metro Weekly reports:

According to court documents, the FBI arrested Timothy David Miller in Alexandria on charges that he aided in the international parental kidnapping of Isabella Miller-Jenkins by one of her two mothers, Lisa Miller. The FBI statement says Lisa Miller took her child to Mexico in September 2009 ''with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights by Janet Jenkins,'' her former civil union partner. The statement says Timothy Miller provided assistance with Lisa Miller's travel from the U.S. to Toronto and then to Mexico City, and provided shelter for her. The Millers then continued on to Managua, Nicaragua, later that month. A warrant for Lisa Miller's arrest was issued in April 2010. Sarah Star, a Vermont attorney representing Jenkins, said Friday that, despite Timothy Miller's arrest, ''We still don't know where they are now." Jenkins issued a statement saying she hopes ''Isabella is safe and well" and that she is looking forward to "having my daughter home safe with me very soon."

According to the FBI, Lisa Miller has been receiving checks issued by the Lynchburg Christian Academy, an affiliate of Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Church. Before vanishing, Miller had been legally assisted by the anti-gay Liberty Counsel, leading many to speculate that they had a hand in her disappearance. That appears to be the case as the Liberty Counsel is also affiliated with Falwell's Liberty University. Let's hope the FBI is questioning Matt Barber.

UPDATE: In an extensive story on today's news, the Advocate notes that Miller's Liberty Counsel attorney is named in the FBI's affidavit.

Miller’s attorney, Liberty associate professor of law Rena M. Lindevaldsen, could not be reached for comment Friday, though a Liberty representative asked to see Kaegel’s affidavit and said that any allegations of misconduct on the part of the organization were false.

Every involved Liberty Counsel member should be indicted!

Read the FBI affidavit. (PDF)

UPDATE II: In an addition to their above-linked story, the Advocate notes that the Liberty Counsel has now scrubbed their website of the bio of an employee named in the FBI affidavit. The normally Twitter-happy Liberty Counsel has so far remained mum on the growing scandal.

UPDATE III: Right Wing Watch notes that the FBI's affidavit reveals that Lisa Miller and her daughter have been living in a Nicaragua house owned by the father of Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver's secretary.

How it is that Liberty Counsel's most high profile client kidnaps her daughter and flees the country and the organization insists for more than a year that it has no idea where she is ... only to have it turn out that she is reportedly living in a home owned by the father of an admin assistant in Staver's very own office?

Mike Huckabee: I Hate Everything In The Entire World To Do With Gay People

In so many words...

Grocery Store Finds Gay Parenting Magazine Cover Too Offensive For Kids

Last night Twitter user JennHudd tweeted out this photo she took at Harps, a grocery store in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Apparently US Weekly's cover shot of Elton John, his partner, and baby is just too shocking for children. Harps has over 60 locations in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Call their home office at 877-772-8193 or use their contact form if you'd like to register a polite protest.

UPDATE: According to a company spokesperson, the store claims it was responding to customer complaints when it covered up the magazine. GLAAD investigates:

I spoke with Harps Corporate Executive Assistant Marty Yarborough, who told me that every Harps store is equipped with these shields and that they get put up whenever customers complain about the content of a magazine cover. She said the word from the store about this particular cover was that “several” customers had complained, so the shield went up. She also confirmed that these shields are utilized on a store-by-store basis, so the magazine would not have been covered up at any of the other Harps locations, unless customers complained there as well. She also told me that the usage of the shield on this particular cover is “in no way our opinion on this issue.” She quickly added, ”we do not have an opinion on this issue.”

UPDATE II: The Harps corporate office has issued an official press release on the matter.

World Net Daily: Gay Parents Are Going To Abort Their Straight Babies!

Even though all good Christians know that homosexuality is a choice, today World Net Daily warns that thanks to "mushrooming genomic advances," it won't be long before gay parents are going to selectively abort heterosexual babies.

If two homosexual men want to use in vitro fertilization to conceive a baby and then use genetics technology to ensure the baby is also "gay," while disposing of any "straight" embryos, would the law have any ethical problems with that? John A. Robertson of the University of Texas Law School is the chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and an advocate of what his book "Children of Choice" calls "procreative liberty." In a paper for the Washington, D.C., think tank Brookings Institution, Robertson presents a futuristic scenario where advancing science and society's evolving morality could create a once only dreamed-of ethical dilemma:

"Larry, a pediatrician, and David, a wills lawyer, meet in their late 20s, fall in love, and marry on June 15, 2025, in Indianapolis," Robertson writes. "By 2030, they are well-enough established in their careers to think about having their own child. Larry's 24-year-old sister Marge has agreed to donate her eggs, and David will provide the sperm, so that each partner will have a genetic connection with the child. … In the process, Larry and David come to realize that they would prefer to have a male child that shares their sexual orientation." He continues, "The clinic doctors are experts in embryo screening and alteration, but cannot guarantee that the resulting embryos will in fact turn out to be homosexual. To increase the certainty, they will insert additional 'gay gene' sequences in the embryos."

In today's article, World Net Daily manages to refrain from raising the scenario of Christians aborting gay babies. That wasn't the case in 2007 when columnist Jill Stanet predicted the mass abortion of "swishy blastocysts" and the "annihilation of lots of little lesbians," should the gay gene ever be identified.

That's Gay: How Not To Be A Gay Dad

More Gays Raise Kids In The South

According to a study of data released by the U.S. Census, there are more gay couples raising children in the southern states than in urban states more traditionally considered to be gay hot spots.

Child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England. The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

One theory for the result is that southern blacks and Latinos may be more likely to have been in a heterosexual marriage with children prior to coming out.

Elton And David And Son

Elton John and David Furnish give the world its first look of their newborn son via OK Magazine today.

When asked who Zachary's biological father is, Furnish replied: 'We both contributed. For the time being we don't have a clue. We look at him every day and at the moment he has Elton's nose and my hands. 'Neither of us care. He's our child. The important thing is that he's healthy and happy and loved.' Elton also said he and Furnish are both determined to be as 'hands on' as possible with Zachary. He added: 'I feed him. David feeds him. We change his nappies. I mean, it's hands on! We are on nappy patrol.'

People's Choice Winner Neil Patrick Harris Kisses And Thanks His Partner

Nominations Open For 2011 Bloggies

Yesterday nominations opened for the 2011 Bloggies and for the first time there is a Best Religion Blog category. I suggest the hilarious satire site, Christwire, whose writers even befuddled the New York Times this year. There's also a first-time category for Best Parenting Blog. What would be a good gay parenting blog to nominate?

HomoQuotable - Andrew Pierce

"I can’t help feeling that his decision to become a father is another grotesque act of selfishness from Sir Elton, and that the child is a little Christmas bauble he and his partner have awarded themselves. How telling it is that he was born on Christmas Day. [snip] He [Sir Elton] is also an aging, pampered, self-indulgent millionaire — look at the absurd names he and Furnish have given the poor child, for heaven’s sake! And it is the nagging suspicion that Elton — a man who is by nature an obsessive — has simply acquired a son to satisfy his latest fixation that I find repellent." - Andrew Pierce, editor of the UK's Daily Mail, who was adopted from a Catholic orphanage at the age of two.

Pierce adds in today's editorial: "Let me make my position clear. I am a gay man and I believe same sex couples should be allowed to adopt or have their own children — although I think that in ideal ­circumstances a child should be brought up by a mother and father."

Elton John & Partner Become Parents

Elton John and his partner David Furnish have announced the birth of a son.

The baby boy, who was born Dec. 25 in California via a surrogate, weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces. "We are overwhelmed with happiness and joy at this very special moment," John and Furnish tell Us in a joint statement. "Zachary is healthy and doing really well, and we are very proud and happy parents." This is the first child for John, 62, and Furnish, 48. The couple married in 2005 after 12 years together.

Actually, Us Magazine, the couple is civilly partnered in the UK, not married. The baby's full name: Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John. Levon? I was hoping for Bennie.

Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber Accuses Courts Of "Kidnapping" Isabella Miller

How's THIS for chutzpah? Matt Barber says it's the COURTS that have "kidnapped" Isabella Miller. And not Lisa Miller, her whackadoodle "ex-gay" biological mother whom many suspect was spirited out of the country by the Liberty Counsel themselves when custody of Isabella was awarded to Miller's former partner, Janet Jenkins. The Liberty Counsel claims not to have seen or heard from Lisa Miller in over a year, yet they continue to represent her in court. Matt Barber, where are YOU hiding Isabella Miller?

Gay Parenting Study Reports Zero Cases Of Abuse By Lesbian Moms

The Williams Institute today reported (PDF) that a small study of the adolescent children of lesbian mothers showed no reported incidents of abuse by either their parents or another caregiver.

The paper finds that none of the 78 NLLFS adolescents report having ever been physically or sexually abused by a parent or other caregiver. This contrasts with 26% of American adolescents who report parent or caregiver physical abuse and 8.3% who report sexual abuse. According to the authors, "the absence of child abuse in lesbian mother families is particularly noteworthy, because victimization of children is pervasive and its consequences can be devastating. To the extent that our findings are replicated by other researchers, these reports from adolescents with lesbian mothers have implications for healthcare professionals, policymakers, social service agencies, and child protection experts who seek family models in which violence does not occur." On sexual orientation, 2.8% of the NLLFS adolescents identified as predominantly to exclusively homosexual.

The Williams Institute is part of the UCLA School of Law and has been tracking lesbian-headed families for 24 years. Read their complete study. (PDF)

MEXICO CITY: Woman Becomes Surrogate Birth Mother To Gay Son's Baby

After an in vitro fertilization procedure, a 50 year-old woman in Mexico City has become the surrogate mother to her 31 year-old gay son's baby using a donated egg and her son's sperm.

The baby, called Dario, was born by caesarean section on November 1 and the mother and child were sent home after a 48-hour period of observation. Doctors said there were no complications. ‘I don't feel like a mother nor like a grandmother,’ the woman told Reforma, a Mexico City newspaper. ‘When they say “mother” to me I feel strange, and when they say “grandmother” also,’ she said. ‘I mean, he was my first grandson, and I don't feel that way because at the same time he is my fourth son.’ The family has fully documented the circumstances of the birth so that the child will one day be able to learn of his origins.

The birth has already gotten widespread coverage on anti-gay and Christianist blogs, where it is being ridiculed as yet another example of "bizarre gay parenting." NOM tweeted the story this morning and the Freepers are having a field day.

SCOTUS Rejects Lisa Miller Case

The Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Lisa Miller, the "ex-gay" biological mother who lost custody of her daughter to her former partner.

The justices on Monday turned down an appeal from Lisa Miller, the biological mother of an 8-year-old girl. Miller wanted the court to undo a Virginia court decision allowing Janet Jenkins visitation rights with the girl. Jenkins is from Vermont. Miller is from Virginia. They were joined in a civil union in Vermont in 2000. Their daughter has been the subject of a long-running legal fight. Miller has renounced her homosexuality. She and her daughter did not appear for a court-ordered custody swap in January. Their whereabouts are unknown.

Miller's case has been championed by both the "ex-gay" movement and by anti-gay Christianist groups who believe that gays should never have parental rights. It is suspected by many that Miller and her daughter Isabelle have been spirited out of the country by the anti-gay Liberty Counsel, who represents her.

Tweet Of The Day - Neil Patrick Harris

(Via - Good As You)

Opening January 2011 - The Right To Love: An American Family

Facebook page here.