groundhogs and politics
Family Pride on Feb 5th 2007
February’s holidays encompass the entire spectrum of being an LGBT parent. Right at the center is Valentine’s Day, honoring love in all its varied forms. It is already used as the focal point of Freedom to Marry Week. After that comes President’s Day, given extra meaning this year as presidential candidates spring up like colds in a preschool. It reminds us of the political undercurrent that is never far from the surface of our lives, as courts and legislators make decisions that affect our families’ legal relationships and rights. All of February is, of course, Black History Month, and the chance to remember that the LGBT-rights movement is only one in a long sweep of such movements in American history.
Leading off the month, however, is Groundhog Day. This is a minor holiday, as they go, with no day off, no gift giving, and no presidential proclamations. It is one of those small bits of American tradition carefully instilled in our youth and useless since. Still, as parents, we pass the tradition on to our own children, and take the opportunity each year to remember our childhoods, when we first learned about the power of a furry rodent to predict the weather.
Love, politics, civil rights, and parenting. February has them all, packed into the shortest month of the year. Likewise, these subjects fill our lives. It is as impossible to separate them as it is to remove a holiday from February and still consider it the same month. This is one of the reasons Mary Cheney has caused so much debate with her demand that her child not be used as a political tool. She is doing what any parent would - trying to protect her child from being used by others - but she is also trying, at least publicly, to keep separate her parenting and her politics. For most LGBT parents, that is an impossible task. Not that we had children for political reasons - and in that, I agree with Mary - but LGBT parenting is political because it is being debated in statehouses and courthouses across the country, regardless of our personal motivations. We rail at Mary Cheney because she is attempting to do what we would all desperately like to do: stop our families from being used by politicians to win elections.
For LGBT parents, however, at this point in history, love, politics, civil rights and parenting are too intertwined to separate. Rather than waste our energy wishing things were otherwise, let us do the opposite, and work to integrate those elements into a stronger whole. A parenting driven by pride in our families and a willingness to stand up for them will help us raise children who are confident, courageous citizens. And a politics driven by the love of our children and our desire to ensure their civil rights has a passion behind it that can take it far; farther, perhaps, than a politics driven by a sense of privilege and entitlement.
Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian (www.mombian.com), a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents. She lives with her partner and their three-year-old son.
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