<p><strong></strong><em><strong>Sorting through rights and challenges for <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/lgbtq" target="_blank" class="wordlink">LGBTQ</a> families</strong></em></p><p>During the last decade, there has been increasing visibility of families headed by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) parents and Solo Moms. LGBTQ parents are as diverse as the general public and include all races, ethnicities, income levels, and <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/education" target="_blank" class="wordlink">education</a> levels, as well as rural, suburban, and urban dwellers. Similarly, the issues that LGBTQ parents and single moms face are just as diverse and affect their parental rights. Just as noticeable are detractors of the LGBTQ community, especially those who focus on LGBTQ individuals’ rights to marry and become parents. However, several rights remain in question for LGBTQ parents and single moms, such as the right to form a family, adopt, have custody of their children, and become foster parents. Given these issues, it is important to understand how they affect LGBTQ parents and single parents.</p><p><strong>Right to form a family</strong></p><p>This right is directly tied to the former denial of LGBTQ individuals to legally marry. The institution of civil marriage functions as the entry to social rights, benefits, freedoms, and protections that are exclusive to this legal relationship. Until very recently, marriage was one right that was denied to the LGBTQ community, yet the recent Supreme Court decision supports LGBTQ marriage, the first step in forming a family.</p><p><strong>Second-parent <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/adoption" target="_blank" class="wordlink">adoption</a></strong></p><p>When the right to second-parent adoption is denied, there is only one legal parent even though two people may equally parent the child and consider themselves as coparents. The status as a legal parent is automatically conveyed to the parent who has a biological connection to a child, such as a biological mom. Similarly, although some couples raise an adopted child together, only one of them may have officially become the adoptive parent because some agencies prohibit same-sex couples from adopting together but permit a solo parent to adopt. </p><p><strong>Child custody</strong></p><p>For LGBTQ parents who are legally ending their unions, there are some challenges because the law—both as it is written and as it is practiced—can be unfair to same-sex parents. In addition, these legal rules change frequently. Like other custody cases, compromise with an eye toward resolution should be the goal, so a custody mediator may be needed or even required. The issues of legal and physical custody and visitation are of greatest concern and can be the source of great distress. In several states, a parent’s sexual orientation cannot solely prevent a parent from receiving custody of or visitation with their child, or from receiving spousal and child support; however, LGBTQ parents in those states may be denied custody or visitation. This is because judges, when considering what’s best for the child, may be motivated by their own or community prejudices and may find reasons other than the lesbian or gay parent’s sexual orientation to deny custody or appropriate visitation.</p><p><strong>Becoming a foster parent</strong></p><p>The implied prejudices associated with child custody issues of LGBTQ parents and single moms also affect LGBTQ people who want to become foster parents. Many states have or have had bans on LGBTQ people becoming foster parents. Nearly a year ago, two congressional republicans introduced the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act because they wanted to shield adoption and foster-care providers from an “anti-faith bias.” The true goal of the act is to abolish state-level laws requiring child welfare services to let gay couples adopt children. Religious adoption agencies in some states have closed their doors rather than allowing LGBTQ people to adopt or foster children. The sponsors of the act contend that adoption agencies that take a courageous stand against gay adoption deserve federal protection. Some states have not embraced those beliefs and ideals. In March of 2015, Nebraska abandoned a contentious 20-year-old policy that barred gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents. Hopefully, this trend will continue, and other states will relax or nullify laws that keep LGBTQ individuals from becoming foster parents.</p><p>Rights for LGBTQ parents are evolving and ever-changing, so it’s necessary to understand the issues that affect their rights. Understanding their needs allows people and communities to respond with appropriate support, guidance, and information. Currently, some states support LGBTQ families while others are working to dismantle strides seen in other parts of the country. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court set the stage for progress, and it seems most of the land will comply. </p><p><br></p>
<p><strong><i><span style="font-size: 20px;">A look back at the day my ill-fated marriage became the law of the land</span></i></strong><strong><em></em></strong></p><p><strong>The good news</strong></p><p>I was sitting on my back porch wrapped in a hoodie to ward off the early morning chill. A freelance writer and solo parent, this summer I’ve been avoiding child-care costs by waking up at 5:45 a.m. and cranking out a few uninterrupted hours’ work before my kids need me. </p><p>But on the morning of June 26, I was interrupted. At 7:17 a.m. my phone pinged. I ignored it. Then it pinged again. And again. A rush of anticipation charged through me: <em>SCOTUS</em>. </p><p>I grabbed my phone, read the string of messages: </p><p>“SCOTUS rules marriage bans unconstitutional!”</p><p>“Marriage Equality for All!”</p><p>“Happy day!”</p><p>“OMG! Just heard the Supreme Court decision!”</p><p>“Yes!!!”</p><p>Sitting on my back porch, phone in hand, tears welling in my eyes, I experienced—physically—the sensation of my body pushing against a brick wall, and finally, brick by brick, feeling the wall crack, crumble, give way.</p><p>All. Fifty. States.</p><p><strong>My activist family</strong></p><p>For ten of the past eleven years, my family stood on the front lines of the marriage equality movement. Starting with my marriage to Tracie—with our firstborn attending in my belly—at San Francisco City Hall, during the Winter of Love 2004; through the ups and downs of California’s Proposition 8 campaign; to the celebration of our legal marriage, with our two children as witnesses, in 2008; to this final SCOTUS decision—we have marched, campaigned, donated, and spoken with media, domestic and international, radio, film, and print. </p><p>And now marriage equality is the law of the land. </p><p>And Tracie and I are starting <a href="https://esme.com/resources/c/divorce" target="_blank" class="wordlink">divorce</a> proceedings.</p><p><strong>In the shadows</strong></p><p>The need for legal relationship recognition among same-sex couples first came to national attention during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s to mid-1990s. Lifelong partners not only were losing their beloveds to a terrifying epidemic, they were barred from hospital rooms and treatment decisions by unsympathetic medical staff; they were banned from memorial services by homophobic family members; they were losing their shared homes and belongings because no laws protected their rights to community property, to pensions, to death benefits for grieving spouses. </p><p>These end-of-life protections held center stage in the SCOTUS decisions both to dismantle the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013 and to affirm marriage as a civil right this past June. SCOTUS has made it clear that all loving couples deserve access to the dignity and the legal protections of civil marriage, in life and after death. </p><p>But standing in the shadows next to happy couples celebrating their love and marriage benefits is something no one wants to talk about: in establishing a legal foundation for marriages that last, the marriage equality movement also has laid a safe, clear, and legal path for those people, like Tracie and me, who have decided to divorce.</p><p><strong>The “failure” stage</strong></p><p>As a media point person in the marriage equality movement, in the aftermath of major losses and wins, I got used to answering reporters’ most common question, “How do you feel?” </p><p>Today’s answer: It’s complicated.</p><p>When Tracie and I first decided to separate a year ago, I felt an acute sense of failure. This is a common stage in the divorce process. The “till death do us part” societal expectation, along with the individual hopes and dreams newlyweds carry into marriage—they can lead people to experience divorce as a deep, personal failure. A few months after Tracie and I separated, that feeling of failure faded to the background, but the SCOTUS announcement brought it back, front and center.</p><p>For some gay and lesbian couples, this failure stage is compounded by social circumstances. Whether we have chosen to participate in the LGBT rights movement in a public way or not, everywhere gay and lesbian families go, we become, de facto, representatives of all same-sex parents. At the taqueria, at the beach, at the public library, Tracie, our boys, and I were never just “the Dumesnil-Vickers family,” we were an in-person example of those gay families people were talking about on the news. </p><p>I didn’t mind that, really. If the presence of our family at the local park somehow contributed to a larger positive narrative about gay families, so be it. But now that Tracie and I are moving toward divorce, I feel not only as though I have failed to realize my own hopes for my marriage and family, but also that I’ve failed to uphold the “happy, healthy lesbian family” image that has helped open the hearts and minds of the American public to LGBT people.</p><p>Of course, I would never consider someone else a failure for choosing divorce; I do that only to myself. This sense of failure is nothing more than an ego-driven form of self-criticism. Intellectually, I understand that. I also understand that the mind’s logic does not heal the heart’s pain. So the best thing I can do right now is to acknowledge my emotional truth: at this moment in time, in the face of arguably the biggest win yet for gay rights, I feel like a failure. And that hurts.</p><p>Clearly, I still have some healing to do.</p><p><strong>Marriage equality benefits all of us</strong></p><p>In the weeks following the SCOTUS decision, I’ve noticed a distinct difference between the political wins of my married past—wins that were simultaneously “for our family” and “for all loving couples”—and this final marriage equality win. According to my pouting, petulant inner child, today’s win is for “loving couples who are still together,” who still have hope for “happily ever after.” </p><p>But the SCOTUS ruling is not just for same-sex couples who are still together. The impact of the decision extends far beyond the lives of the couples now queuing up for marriage licenses around the country. The marriage equality movement has created a significant, positive shift in public attitudes toward the LGBT community. The momentum from this win will fuel ongoing fights for federal nondiscrimination legislation, for transgender rights, for safe schools, and ultimately for full, lived equality for all LGBT people, including the divorced and solo parents among us.</p><p>As I see it, the power of the win extends even beyond the LGBT community. The success of the marriage equality movement has shown my children’s generation, unequivocally, that hard work, resilience, and an unrelenting belief in fairness really do lead to dramatic and lasting social change. How better to empower young people to continue bending the long arc of history toward justice? How better to empower our children to persist in the face of challenges?</p><p><strong>Reason to celebrate</strong></p><p>A couple years ago, when marriage equality states started springing up across the country, I printed out two blank United States maps and gave them to my boys. Together we marked all the marriage equality states: nine, at the time. Then we started a tradition: when a new state welcomed marriage equality, we would fill in that blank on the map and celebrate with ice cream. </p><p>This morning, when the boys woke up, I told them about the SCOTUS decision by handing them my phone, this image emblazoned on the screen: </p><p><img src="/assets/img/cms/redactor/jaDumm6z4m8XwYuX.jpg" alt="" style="display: block; margin: auto;"></p><p>“Really?” they asked. “<em>All</em> the states?”<br></p><p>I smiled and nodded. “<em>You </em>helped do this, you know. <em>You</em> helped make this happen.”</p><p>The looks on their faces—the wonder, the pride—those are reason enough to celebrate this win.<br></p><hr><p><span style="font-size: 11px;">Map image: </span><a href="http://www.lgbtmap.org/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11px;">LGBTQMap.org</span></a></p>