A Pleasure

It was a pleasure to work with Glenn and Steve on this project. They have a beautiful and loving family. I was mostly impressed by how public their lives were. Steve is a politician and that line of work can put strain on any family. Steve is an openly gay politician which I find interesting because a community is okay with a gay man “molding the minds of their children” (he is on the school board) but don’t think he deserves the right to marry the man he loves and the father of his children. Further, Glenn and Steve have done numerous public appearances including photo spreads of their family. I feel like this is a testament to the bond within their family. This reminds me of the constant awareness of the perception they give off. They are spokes people for their cause; and proudly so. I am so very impressed by the initiative to put their family out in the public eye as an example of the love and compassion this family has. After sharing the lives of these two remarkable men, it is hard for me to understand who would find this kind of relationship and family un-natural.
Thank you,
Mandy

Things I have learned

• Your overall thoughts and experiences about this project
• Things you have learned since you began working on this project

I feel more confident about my ability to interact with people. I am/can be shy; so, I have been attempting, during the past two quarters, to be more outgoing and social. My shyness, however, begins and ends in the classroom/academic settings. I have internships where I have to be social and interact without an issue. I know that in order to work towards my goal to be a lawyer I must continue to interact and communicate with as many people as I can. I feel that this project has helped me to further my social interactions with people from different walks of life. The only issues I feel that arose was communication in certain situations. Also working with a partner and coordinating times between the two of us was challenging but still beneficial to our educational/learning environment.

My only wish is that we had more time to bond and get to know the families before the photo shoot. I felt and feel as if everything is rushed; not because of anything specific, other than UCLA is on the quarter system. [Week 7]

Best,

Shamime

Never a dull moment in the life of a UCLA Bruin!

Hey it’s Shamime, UCLA student!

The Family I was lucky to spend time with wac Raymond and Byron!

I loved visiting the families in their home! Their little girls were adorable! Seeing all of the love their dad’s had for them was amazing! It makes me want to share this experience with everyone I see; informing them that “family” has no limitations. A family can be however an individual(s) decide to make it. Interacting with the toddlers and gaining their trust was something I thoroughly enjoyed. Seeing the little girls come out of their shy shell and begin to interact with us was priceless! My personal interactions are as follows:

I recall the two girls not wanting to be near us when we first arrived. I finally had an idea of taking off my bracelet and letting one of them try it on. Finally about an hour later we were all in the family room with the children when their parents walked out with one twin, leaving the other next to the couch in the corner! I took this moment to see her sitting behind the couch with her bottle looking left/lost/trapped. I decided to take a chance and extend my hand from across the room in hopes that she would respond in some way or form! Luckily she did! She ran at my hand and grabbed it and leaned on my leg like she did with her Dad’s. I was relieved to be received so well!

Personally interacting was the highlight of my visit.

There’s never a dull moment in the life of a UCLA Bruin!

Shamime

What I learned, what I will do.

I am surprised of how much I learned visiting Steven and Glenn’s home. As a gay man, I thought I knew every thing about the joy and despear of a gay family life. As a young open-minded student, I guessed I had ideas about how to live a what life look loke being out. Thus I thought I knew too how to fight scepticism and homophobia. Thanks to the To have and to hold project, I learned that you do not know anything unless you have spoken and shared with other people. To say that others experiences empower your life and give you knowledge is not a cliché, it is a real way to engage with your life in the community and the society.

To see Glenn and Steven speaking about their three kids, their wedding, their families, their relatives and co-workers made me realize how everyday life is a political engagement. Every action we make is a choice, every time we act in the world (our own world or in our public life) we perform a moral choice. To see how much power, love, and cleverness Glenn and Steven are spreading around them gave me the will to speak more often out loud. Every time someone or a group endanger human rights and freedoms, you must stand up. For the families we met and the experiences we had. This is why we will display the 13lovestories every where we can, and anytime we will meet, in our personal or public life, someone speaking with clichés and using stereotypes, we will talk with them keeping in mind the love and the respect that the families shared with us.

Victor - UCLA - WAC

Please Don't Divorce My Dads/Moms

Please Don't Divorce My Dads/Moms


please watch and share....

KK Cressman
Week 6

Gettoknowmefirst.org

One of of the Get To Know Me First campaign PSA's

California case brings Internet into gay adoption debate

What began in October 2002 as an Internet adoption odyssey for Michael and Richard Butler ''Richard Butler may refer to:

Military:

• Richard Butler (general) (1743–1791), American Revolutionary War general, later killed fighting American Indians in Ohio

Politicians:

• 
  

may end up in court. The Butlers, a gay couple who live in California, are suing the operators of Adoption.com for refusing to post their profile as prospective parents on the privately run site, which bills itself as "the Internet's #1 adoption Web site." (Butler v. Adoption Media, No. C 040135JL (N.D. Cal. filed Jan. 15, 2004).)

In a letter explaining the refusal, Dale Gwilliam, the site's legal counsel, said that "children have a much greater chance of thriving in their lives, rather than just surviving, if they are raised in a stable and traditional two-parent family environment."

The Butlers, whom the state had approved as adoptive parents adoptive parents Social medicine Persons who lawfully adopt children, who are generally married couples but may be single persons, including homosexuals; most APs are married , signed up for Adoption.com's service, making information about themselves available to birth mothers and adoption agencies. For their attorney, Neel Chatterjee, who is handling the case along with the National Center for Lesbian Rights The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) is a non-profit, public interest law firm that litigates precedent-setting cases at the trial and appellate court levels, advocates for equitable public policies affecting the LGBT community, provides free legal assistance to LGBT (NCLR NCLR National Council of La Raza
NCLR National Center for Lesbian Rights
NCLR North Carolina Literary Review
NCLR North Carolina Law Review
NCLR National Conference of Law Reviews
NCLR New Criminal Law Review ), the issue is clear-cut: "In California, it has been legislatively allowed for over 20 years that same-sex couples or single homosexual parents can adopt," he said.

But the case has a few wrinkles. Because Adoption.com does not formally approve adoptions--it functions as a medium by which prospective parents, agencies, and birth mothers can find and contact one another--"it's somewhat of a distraction to say that this is a case about gay adoption," Chatterjee said. "The issue is: Can an organization refuse its services because of someone's sexual orientation sexual orientation
n.
The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes, especially a direction seen to be dictated by physiologic rather than sociologic forces. ?"

In addition, said NCLR's Kate Kendell, although Adoption.com is not "an ultimate arbiter of whether a couple gets to adopt," its practice of excluding prospective adopters "on a basis that has nothing to do with their ability as parents ... is discrimination that quite clearly violates California law California Law consists of 29 codes, covering various subject areas, the State Constitution and Statutes. See also

• Statute
• Bill (proposed law)
• California State Legislature

Leslie Cooper, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nonpartisan organization devoted to the preservation and extension of the basic rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution. who is pursuing several gay adoption and foster parent cases--and is cocounsel for the Butlers--said the suit is novel.

"There aren't cases that have addressed that kind of antigay discrimination," she said. "California has very clear law that bans discrimination against gay people in public accommodations and employment. But there haven't been cases around the country challenging a private agency's decision to exclude gay people. This is the first that I've ever heard of."

The case was first filed in December in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden County Superior Court, then was removed to federal district court, where the defendants filed a motion to dismiss on jurisdictional and substantive grounds: the former because the site is based in Arizona, not California, and the latter on the theory that discrimination on the basis of marital status marital status,
n the legal standing of a person in regard to his or her marriage state.
..... Click the link for more information. is allowed in California because gay people cannot be married there.

Before the first filing, the Web site amended its rules governing who may post prospective-parent profiles. In addition to noting that prospective parents must fulfill all adoption requirements of their states, the site now says they "must be legally married to each other as husband and wife." According to the site, this requirement ensures that all prospective parents who post profiles are eligible to adopt in all states, because some states allow only married couples to adopt. Adoption.com also points to unspecified research that "parents who are willing to make this kind of legal and emotional commitment to each other are more likely to stay together and to provide a nurturing family unit for their children."

Indeed, not all states are as open to adoption by gays as California is. Some, like Florida and Utah, ban such adoptions either outright or in effect by banning adoptions by unmarried people. Even in states that do allow gay adoption, Cooper noted, perceptions of gays are as diverse as the population.

"It varies from agency to agency, community to community, worker to worker," she said. "Somebody working in an adoption agency may have strong personal views, religious or otherwise, about gay people and refuse to make placements when there may or may not be policy within that agency [about] placement with gay parents--where some other worker in that agency may be perfectly comfortable with making such placements."

Some agencies' attitudes may be changing. A survey released in October 2003 of 307 adoption agencies by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, an adoption advocacy group, found that even as controversy swirls about gay adoptions, gays and lesbians are adopting in growing numbers and that 60 percent of responding agencies accepted applications from gays.

"It doesn't come as a huge surprise that some states are more favorably disposed to gay and lesbian rights The goal of full legal and social equality for gay men and lesbians sought by the gay movement in the United States and other Western countries.

The term gay originally derived from slang, but it has gained wide acceptance in recent years, and many people who are
..... Click the link for more information. issues than others," said Chatterjee, noting that recent court decisions on gay-rights issues have worked "a significant adjustment to the law." He mentioned Lawrence v. Texas The Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S., 123 S.Ct. 2472, 156 L.Ed.2d 508 (2003), striking down state Sodomy laws as applied to gays and lesbians. (123 S. Ct. 2472 (2003)), which struck down a Texas antisodomy law; Romer v. Evans Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 116 S. Ct. 1620, 134 L. Ed. 2d 855 (1996), is a landmark and controversial decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an amendment to the Colorado state constitution that prohibited state and local governments from enacting any (517 U.S. 620 (1996)), which invalidated an antigay Colorado law; and Goodridge v. Department of Public Health Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003), was a landmark state appellate court case dealing with same-sex marriage rights in Massachusetts. Ruling
..... Click the link for more information. (798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003)), the recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The SJC has the distinction of being the oldest continuously functioning appellate court in the Western Hemisphere. finding that barring gay marriage violates Massachusetts law.

"Obviously, what many other states are doing that is either explicit or de facto [Latin, In fact.] In fact, in deed, actually.

This phrase is used to characterize an officer, a government, a past action, or a state of affairs that must be accepted for all practical purposes, but is illegal or illegitimate. discrimination is now being [seen as] highly suspect by courts around this country," Chatterjee said.

But gay-rights advocates hoping for additional favorable case law were disappointed by a recent Eleventh Circuit decision upholding Florida's ban on gay adoptions. In Lotion v. Department of Children and Family Services, a gay plaintiff who fostered a 12-year-old boy from infancy challenged Florida's law prohibiting gay adoption.

The Eleventh Circuit upheld the law, echoing the language Adoption.com used to restrict its postings: "Although social theorists from Plato to Simone de Beauvoir Noun 1. Simone de Beauvoir - French feminist and existentialist and novelist (1908-1986)
Beauvoir have proposed alternative child-rearing arrangements, none has proven as enduring as the marital family structure, nor has the accumulated wisdom of several millennia of human experience discovered a superior model," Justice Stanley F. Birch Jr. wrote. "Against this 'sum of experience,' it is rational for Florida to conclude that it is in the best interests of adoptive children, many of whom come from troubled and unstable backgrounds, to be placed in a home anchored by both a father and a mother."

The plaintiffs are "exploring the options," said Cooper (No. 01-16723, 2004 WL 161275 (11th Cir: Jan. 28, 2004).)

COPYRIGHT 2004 American Association for Justice
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.

Copyright 2004, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

I feel personally about this article because I am adopted! I believe anyone regardless of sexual orientation should be able to adopt a child. To love and nurture a child does not have to be in a “traditional” family. Even “traditional” families can neglect their children. If two people are able to comfortably raise a child and love that child there should be no limitations. The article discusses the choice of a private agency to censor an online post by a homosexual couple because they were not “traditional”. I find this to be hurtful because I easily could have never been adopted and many children go without stable homes every day. To censor the desire to adopt in terms of sexual orientation is unnecessary.

Shamime Shaw WAC 120