My Question For The Candidates

I am 5 months pregnant with our first child. It has been an incredible struggle - emotionally, physically, and financially to get here. One of the many burdens we have endured as a result of not being able to get married is benefit from tax breaks for medical expenses as a married couple could. My partner is the breadwinner, but we could not claim "my" expenses on her taxes. It is not fair.

We live in the state of VA - one of the worst in the nation for LGBT families. Despite the thousands of dollars we have spent securing documents to try to protect our family (again, something a married couple would not have to do) - we are scared to death of what could happen because someone, somewhere will not recognize our family and our rights. The new Marshall Newman amendment is downright frightening, discriminatory, and clearly unconstitutional. Why are such laws even allowed to pass?

I want the candidates to take a long serious look at ALL the ways these laws HURT FAMILIES and I want to know what steps they will take to give MY FAMILY the SAME protections as any other family.

Clinton & Obama to Participate in LGBT Forum

On August 9, 2007, at 6p Pacific, 9p Eastern, leading presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, will join Melissa Etheridge and HRC's Joe Salmonese in a live address to the GLBT community.

Presidential candidates have never before participated in such an address.

Co-hosted by Logo (a division of MTV Networks) and the Human Rights Campaign, panelists will address a live GLBT audience on issues specific to the community. According to the HRC website, issues such as "relationship recognition, marriage equality, workplace fairness, the military, hate crimes, and HIV/AIDS" among other issues, will be discussed in the live, commercial-free broadcast on August 9th.

Live video streaming will be available through Logo's website - LOGOonline.com. The show will be broadcast live on Logo's cable TV channel (out of Los Angeles).

Remote participants will be able to submit questions during the broadcast via HRC.org and LOGOonline.com.

Coming Out....Pregnant (part 2)

In a previous post, I talked about how being a lesbian who is pregnant can remove the choice of coming out when and how you please. The difference being, when you are not pregnant, people do not (usually) take it upon themselves to inquire about your personal life in such a way their questions might spark discomfort or uncertainty. Now that my body is leaving no doubt as to whether I am pregnant or have simply been eating too many chocolate chip cookies and ice cream (which I have, but I AM eating for two!!), we have begun to share the good news with those with whom we come in constant contact.

Not sure how they might react to the news, we volunteered one of our neighbors to share the news with our 75 and 85 yr old next door neighbors. The conversation went something like this:

ML - We are going to have another birthday in December!

H & T - Really? Who?

ML - Tara is pregnant!

H & T - ?

ML - Tara is having a baby!

H & T - Did she get married?

ML - Nooooo.

H & T - ? Why did she do that?

ML - They have been trying for a long time. They really wanted to have a baby!

H & T - So she is going to be a single mother?

ML - Noooo. She has Kristie. The baby will have 2 mothers!

H & T - ?

H & T - Well, what do we say?

ML - Congrats!

H & T - Oh! OK!

And congratulate us (really me) they did. And continue to, every time we see them. Every phone call they ask how I am feeling and warn me to be careful and take care of that baby! I am sure they still haven't quite figured this out. They have yet to congratulate Kristie. And I hope they will be able to see the three of us as a family. But they have not stopped inviting our dogs over for treats (even freshly soaked from a swim in the river!). They still complained to ML about how we never invite them over. So, guess who is coming to dinner tomorrow?