And in the meantime... check out the growing list of participants into today's blogging at founder Mombian.com. As of this morning the list is mostly parents but there are a few notable posts from queerspawn including tireless activist Abigail Garner's mini-manifesto on how the queer community can be more inclusive towards adult queerspawn (in video no less) and Tobi Hill-Meyer's story of translating her trans identity to her lesbian moms.

COLAGE is also jumping on the blogging bandwagon, with the intention of getting all of their chapters blogging this year. So far Boston, Chicago, Connecticut, New Orleans, New York City and Philly are posting.

Since comments are down on this site right now, drop me an email if you have suggestions or want to join: katerw at queerspawn dot com.

Are you a youth or adult with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender parent/s ? Do you want to help raise visibility and awareness about people with LGBT parents? Do you use any online forums for networking or blogging?

We want you to participate in the first-ever COLAGE Speak OUT Campaign!
Blogging for LGBT Families Day

http://mombian.com/2007/04/16/blogging-for-lgbt-families-2007/
Friday, June 1st, 2007.

COLAGE is the only national organization working with children, youth and adults with one or more LGBT parent/s. Our Speak OUT Campaigns engage our membership to use their voices to raise visibility and impact change. We have chosen this campaign to encourage our members to utilize online forums in which they participate as a means for raising visibility and awareness about children of LGBT parents.

Through our first-ever Speak OUT Campaign, COLAGE aims to increase the number of youth and adults with LGBT parents who participate in this impactful event. “We know that when we speak out about our true experiences, share the blessings and challenges of having families deemed “different” by the rest of society, and talk about the ways in which we and our families are not equally validated or protected, we have a unique and powerful ability to impact change.” shared Meredith Fenton, COLAGE Program Director. “Furthermore, particularly for youth and young adults, the internet, online social networks, and blogs are becoming increasingly influential mediums of communication and we recognize that by being out as people with LGBT parents online we can continue to transform society.”

What is Blogging for LGBT Families Day?
We are looking for at least 30 youth and adults with LGBT parents to participate in the 2nd annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day. It’s easy to participate- on June 1st, 2007 post a journal entry, essay, article or creative piece to your favorite online form. Just make sure that your piece explicitly talks about having an LGBT parent.

Over 130 bloggers participated in last year's Blogging for LGBT Families Day. They included lesbian moms, gay dads, adult children of LGBT parents, members of the transgender community, LGBT individuals without children, and straight allies. Countries represented included the United States as well as Australia, Canada, and the UK.

What should I write about?
You can write about any topic related to having LGBT parents that you like- serious, political, humorous, sentimental¦ anything! Use your post to come out about having an LGBT parent, to share a story about your family, to talk about myths and truths about having LGBT parents, or provide your insight as to what its like to have an LGBT parent. You can write about current legislation such as ENDA (The Federal Employee Non Discrimination Act) or the Uniting American Families Act which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act by adding “permanent partner" next to “spouse" and provide the same immigration procedures for same-sex partners as currently exist for immediate relatives of United States citizens. By highlighting these or other pieces of legislation you can talk about the ways your family does receive the same rights and respect as other families or encourage your online friends and family to take further action.

To participate in this Speak OUT Campaign there are just 5 easy steps!

1. Send an email to Meredith@colage.org letting us know that you plan to participate.

2. Start developing your post for Blogging for LGBT families day. Let COLAGE know if you want any help developing or editing your post.

3. On June 1st, 2007 post your entry to any online forum:
a. MySpace
b. Facebook
c. LiveJournal
d. Blogs
e. Etc.
f. If you do not have a blog, you can post your creation on the www.queerspawn.com blog, just let us know that you want to and we’ll help you make it happen!

4. Send COLAGE a copy of your article and a link to your post (when possible) by emailing Meredith@colage.org. Also send an e-mail to lgbtfamilies@mombian.com with the permalink to your post. (If you know how, you may also add the tag blogging for lgbt families days to your entry.)

5. Visit http://www.mombian.com on June 1 to read what other members of the LGBT community and allies have written for this event.Celebrate that you are joining with COLAGErs across the world to educate our families, friends, and communities about the experiences of youth and adults with LGBT parents.

GROWING UP WITH TWO DADS - Courant.com

SPEAKING UP - Courant.com

DINNER TIME - Courant.com

FATHERS' DAUGHTER-Courant.com (this Story also features Anna Heller - one of the founders of COLAGE)

We are excited to be seeking submissions for a new book on queer parenting. We want the book to reflect current thinking, research, debates, issues, experiences and concerns related to LGBTT2IQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, 2-spirit, intersex and queer) parenting/raising children. We welcome submissions from parents, children, students, activists, scholars, artists and others interested in this area.

We are seeking:
• academic papers
• reports on community-based and other research
• personal stories and reflections that incorporate social/historical/political context
• poetry
• art work

We hope the book can begin to reflect the enormous diversity that exists across queer parenting experiences and raise interesting and possibly provocative questions about the implications of queer-identified people raising children. We particularly welcome submissions from those who are marginalized within “queer” communities.

We want to move from the defensive position we have historically been placed in (i.e. “proving” that our children are okay) to embrace the broad complexity of issues that concern us and our children.

Abstracts/Proposals (250-300 words) due: January 1, 2007
Acceptances will be made by: February 28, 2007
Accepted submissions due: July 1, 2007

Please send inquiries and abstracts/proposals to:
Rachel Epstein rachelep at rogers dot com

*** Please post and distribute widely ***

On the front page of the magazine: Gay Donor or Gay Dad?

And in the Modern Love from Sunday Style: Fatherly Memories Scattered to the Win

More reactions and thoughts on these pieces tmw. While I tease out my thoughts check out darksandal's "usual complaints," which I always find compelling.

Why I chose to spend my late night reading the official Guidelines for Pastoral Care, you might wonder? Consider it some serious Catholic guilt.

I'll give the Bishops some credit... they try in the beginning to acknowledge the effect that homophobia and discrimination has on people and society.

"We recognize that these persons have been, and often continue to be, objects of scorn, hatred, and even violence in some sectors of society. Sometimes this hatred is manifested clearly; other times, it is masked and gives rise to more disguised forms of hatred....Those who would minister in the name of the Church must in no way contribute to such injustice."

Bold for the Bishops. I give my respect... to a point. Then the statement goes on to describe how God's will for our sexuality is to provide life and that homosexual acts "violate the proper ends of human sexuality." (For the record, masturbation and contraception are also listed as violators. ) The Bishops walk a fine line. Homosexuality is not itself a sin, it's just a bad choice to act on it. Like getting yourself off or using a condom.

Besides the societal homophobia context, none of the Bishops' argument is all that new... except when you get to page 16 when they lay out advice on "pastoral care" for those of us who have a homosexual inclination (or who's parent(s) do.) Some interesting points:

- baptized Catholics with a homosexual inclination, or "WAHI" for short, are welcome to participate in the Church BUT they can be denied certain positions if their "behavior violates [the Church's] teachings"
- leaders of the Church must not belong to any groups that oppose the policy on persons WAHI
- persons WAHI can and should tell close friends, but don't out yourself to the world, or as the Bishops warn: "general public self-disclosures are not helpful"

and in a perfect moment of walking the very fine line between welcoming and condemning:

"the Church does not support the adoption of children by same-sex couples since homosexual unions are contrary to the dive plan" HOWEVER "the Church does not refuse the Sacrament of Baptism to these children, but there must be a well founded hope that the children will be brought up in the Catholic religion."

There's a lot more, including a mention of persons WAHI living their lives in the Church so as to avoid falling into the "gay subculture" and encouragement to reach out to young people before they fall into the subculture. But I won't bore any longer. Go check out the full document and see for yourself.

And now I will return to the gay subculture that I fell into. This second-gen baptized Catholic queerspawn stopped taking communion a long time ago... but with a big ol'Irish-Catholic family it's hard to ignore these missives when they come down. Slainte.

What follows below is a public letter written to the entire COLAGE community, wrap these words around you when you forget where you're going. Dare I say it is a Queerspawn manifesto of sorts? Not for me to decide on my own, but nevertheless, read on and you shall be rewarded...

[Begin message.]

My dear friends,

Let me start this missive by saying that when I think of you all, the full range of adjectives English affords fails me. Brilliant, articulate, compassionate, dynamic, bold, extraordinary, kind, canny, driven, and damn unbelievable only barely scratch the surface. Your personalities leave me infinately inspired, your love and compassion overwhelm my heart, and your dance moves rock my world. I don't think I've ever met a group of people with a human awesomeness rate of %100: every single one you is amazing, amazing, amazing.

I want to tell you all how grateful I am to have you in my life. COLAGE is, no doubt, the most loving and extraordinary community I have ever been privelaged to be a part of, and spending this weekend with you was a gift that I cherish deeply. You enrich me mind, body, and soul; that is a winning combination I doubt most people can claim of their worldly connections. We have all had to travel our own paths, often independantly, struggling to survive periods of incredible distress and succeeding in moments of equally incredible self-affirmation. For myself, I accomplished much of that process alone (as I think many of us did) only to discover later, through all of you, that I was never really alone at all. Coming to the realization that I need a community like ours is a difficult one for me - I have always wished to remain independent, not wanting to be beholden to anyone or anything for my strength, my passion, and my personal growth.

Coming home from Dallas I realized more clearly than ever before that I not only need COLAGE, but that I want to need COLAGE. I feel as though to need the community that we have all forged (even in brief but powerful encounters) is to somehow reaffirm the very families that we came from, to say that we not only represent or speak for queer families but that apart from our parents we have also forged a human family that may in fact be more complex, diverse, and enriching to the world than any institutionalized family form alone could be. I don't think I fully understood the idea of producing alliances across difference until I found myself falling headlong into this amazing, and wonderful, and powerful thing called COLAGE. Whether it scares me or not to say it, to voice that commitment, I have to acknowledge that I need this family.

We live in a political moment that puts into question the very notion of "home," that parades home as something to be won on a television show or a deceptively innocent idea tacked onto the maddeningly single-minded mission of American democracy - as national boundaries are questioned, as imperial politics continue to make "home"
synonymous with a self-centered American experience, as the world contracts and presses us to rethink our sense of belonging, all of you have shown me what it means to be at home in the world. That, more than anything, allows me to see the possiblities for social, cultural, and political change that spread out in countless directions before us. I can't tell you how exciting that is, but I doubt you need me to
- it is an excitement that I think is palpable for all of us.

I apologize for the length and intensity of this message but I am so rarely afforded the time to write at length that I wanted to give this weekend the respect it deserves (and all of you the kudos you deserve). Thank you for always making me think, for pushing me forward, and for simply being you!

Call, write, visit ... whatever you must.

With great love, respect, and admiration, Ramzi Fawaz

[End message.]

Beautifully put.

RE: Act OUT Dallas

Queerspawn descended this weekend upon Dallas, Texas. It was glorious. Dancing proliferated as evidenced by the photo above. To my surprise, the Texans tolerated us quite gracefully despite a few strange looks. As you can see, I have acquired the requisite headgear of the Texas tourist. Should prove useful in my man pageant on Saturday as I emulate the great Bandit (aka Burt Reynolds from "Smokey and the Bandit")... love it.

Please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Dakota Fine, and you better recognize... long time COLAGEr and activist extraordinaire. No really, I'm just another one of the legions of us kids trying to make a difference in this crazy world.

So a couple of off the cuff comments I'd like to make about this work...
QUEERSPAWN: Don't know how I feel about the label to tell you the truth. I have been wrestling with the term "Queerspawn" since I first heard it 3 years ago, and I still don't really like it. However, I am beginning to recognize the shock value and catchiness are worthwhile. I am realizing also that (as with all names) we can take it or leave it, it's really up to the individual as to what suits us best. I honestly think it'd be better as the name of a band.
HRC: The Human Rights Campaign employs me currently, and I hope to use this blog as a means of disseminating ideas, maintaining contact with other activists, and publishing my activities. Hopefully, we can use this blog as a tool to build the community.

MISSION STATEMENT: I will say that being a part of COLAGE has been unequivicably one of the most important influences in my life. Doing this work keeps me fulfilled, and continually puts me in touch with some of the most amazing people I have ever met. This past weekend in Dallas I had the pleasure of yet again sharing my work, tears, laughter, dreams, and dance moves with the beautiful people that make up this very vital and thriving niche of the queer community. I see our work as paramount to correcting the broken family paradigm we have been force fed through popular culture. This is a movement of hope.

I look forward to using this space to chronicle some of the daily happenings in the queerspawn universe, to share some of the quirky stories, our moving victories, or even some uplifting experiences or random occurences.

And last but certainly not least... a big shout out to Kate RW and the rest of my brothers and sisters who were at the Act OUT conference in Dallas. Big ups kids. Love you all.