Ideas, opinions, and personal essays from respected writers, thinkers, and activists. A project of Beacon Press, an independent publisher of progressive ideas since 1854.
I got a call from Kaiser Permanente several days ago informing me that I was due for my yearly mammogram. That call came the day before I saw the headline in the New York Times telling me that having a test every other year is now the recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force for a woman my age. Besides, they say, nevermind the breast self-exam, or even the exam by my primary care physician. None of this is going to save my life. Statistically, anyway. And besides, more frequent exams may lead me to extreme anxiety when a lump is found that turns out to be benign (which has happened 2 or 3 times already), and I may be subjected to unnecessary treatment for an early-stage cancer which might have gone away on its own-- unnecessary treatment being more tests, and perhaps radiation and/or chemotherapy, and even surgery. Whoa! What should a woman do?
Why should people shop local this holiday season? One reason is that shopping at an independent business, instead of a chain, generates far more benefit for your local economy. Several recent studies have found that a dollar spent at a locally owned business generates 2-3 times as much local economic activity as a dollar spent at a chain and supports many more local jobs.
Another compelling reason to go local this year is to make the holidays fun again. Who wants to sit in traffic at the mall? It's so much more rewarding to stroll through the small stores in your neighborhood or downtown. You'll not only find unusual gifts that don't come from a sweatshop, but you're bound to run into friends, get into an interesting conversation, enjoy the beauty of historic buildings decked out in lights, take time to savor a hot chocolate at the local café — in short, you'll have a chance to really experience and celebrate the place in which you live.
"Angelina Gomez," the medical assistant hollers out to the crowded waiting room. As always, I cringe when I hear this. It sounds so harsh, so cattle-like. I know that the assistant is actually a gentle and caring person, and I understand that he uses a loud voice so that he can be heard over the general din of a large waiting room.
Nevertheless it feels horrible to me, so demeaning, like we're in the DMV instead of a medical clinic. I want the environment to be more humane, more civilized, and so when I go out to call a patient, I use a much softer voice, with a tone that I hope conveys more respect.
Of course, no one can hear me. Heads turn, ears strain, faces contort as people try to figure out who I am calling. The medical assistant usually gets the right person on the first try. I, on the other hand, end up pacing up and down the waiting room repeating the name. Am I making the environment any better?
Second-parent adoption has proved a powerful legal device for gay and lesbian families. It is modeled on step-parent adoption, a statutory scheme that allows a biological (or adoptive) parent's spouse to adopt a child without terminating that parent’s rights, thereby leaving the child with two parents. However critical this method of securing the family’s legal protection remains-- and will remain for the foreseeable future-- there is a conceptual flaw in analogizing same-sex couples to a step-family.
A step-family forms after a child already exists. The child lives with one parent. That person marries or remarries. If the child has no second parent, the step-parent adoption is relatively simple. If there is a second parent, that person must consent to a termination of his parental rights, or the termination must be obtained through a judicial proceeding, and only then can the adoption take place.
A lesbian couple, on the other hand, plans for a child together. From before birth, the child-to-be has two parents. The nonbiological mother is not a step-parent. The closest analogy to her situation is that of an infertile husband whose wife, with his consent, conceives using donor semen. That husband does not have to adopt his child.
One variety of adoption story that is often overlooked during National Adoption MOnth is the second-parent adoption, a legal proceeding that safeguards the rights of non-biological parents, which is available by statute or precedent in only a handful of states and on a case-by-case basis in several others. Today's post is from Amie Klempnauer Miller, author of She Looks Just Like You: A Memoir of (Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood, from which this essay is adapted.
Despite the fact that I always forget it, overshadowed as it is by Mother's Day, which has to do double duty in our family, May 16 is our Adoption Day. It's the day when, more than six years ago now, I stood in a courtroom in Minneapolis and adopted my own daughter. It's an odd thing, really, to stand before a judge and be given official permission to care for the child whom you helped call into being, when she is already yours, and you are already hers.
At the time of the adoption, my partner, Jane, and I had already been together nineteen years. I began the adoption paperwork while Jane was pregnant, but I could not adopt Hannah until there actually was a Hannah, an out-in-the-world Hannah, to be adopted. When we went to the hospital for the birth, I carried a manila folder containing two forms designating me as Standby Custodian-- one that would allow me to make medical decisions should Jane become incapacitated before Hannah’s birth and another allowing me to make decisions should something happen to Jane afterward. Upon our return from the hospital, however, I became the legal equivalent of a live-in guest in our home.
Our lawyer, Ann, had diligently navigated us through the various required forms and procedures. She petitioned the Minnesota Department of Human Services, requesting an Order and Decree of Adoption. She requested a waiver of the home study, based on the facts that Jane and I had lived together since 1987 and Hannah had lived with us since she popped out into the world. Jane and I filed an affidavit spelling out our reasons for wanting the adoption. Jane is the birth parent, it noted. Amie was present when Hannah was born. (I was in the hallway, but close enough.) The decision to have Hannah was mutual. Amie is equally involved in the care and nurture of Hannah "including feeding, bathing, grooming, and dressing; purchasing, cleaning, and caring for her clothes; arranging for medical care, arranging for child care as needed, putting her to bed at night, attending to her during the night, waking her in the morning, and teaching elementary skills."
The affidavit pointed out that "Hannah needs and deserves the legal protection resulting from adoption" including not having to go through guardianship and custodianship proceedings in the event of Jane's death. The adoption would ensure my capacity to make decisions about medical care or carry Hannah on an insurance policy. It would enable Hannah to claim survivor benefits from Social Security and to claim continuing financial support should I decide to become a deadbeat mom. The affidavit further noted that the Court might decide that Jane's parental rights must be terminated in order for me to adopt Hannah, meaning that Jane would then have to adopt her as well. We filed a formal request asking the Court not to require this.
We paid the fee to search the Minnesota Fathers' Adoption Registry, which seemed ridiculous since we had used the sperm of an anonymous donor. But it was required by law, and we now had a form in our possession verifying that "No putative father is registered." Ann's assistant took affidavits from my mother, my father, and from Jane's parents stating their support of my adoption of Hannah. All of the paperwork was in order, one form after another that would allow me to become what I already was.
On the big day, we drove to the Hennepin County Juvenile Justice Center where Ann gave us the happy news that we were assigned to a judge she knew well. "This will be easy," she said pleasantly. In fact, the process itself is simple. Adoptions by same-sex partners in Hennepin County follow the protocol used for stepparent adoptions. Minnesota is not one of the states that officially permit second-parent adoptions by same-sex partners, but judges in some of the counties here had a track record of approving them. Hennepin County, home of Minneapolis, was the most reliable of all, so we felt pretty secure.
A few minutes before our appointed time, Ann reported that we had been reassigned to a new judge. "I haven't worked with him before," she said. "But he’ll probably be fine." Probably. My feelings of security buckled. Even in mostly liberal Hennepin County, approval of second-parent adoptions is entirely contingent on the judge. The fate of my legal relationship to Hannah suddenly hung on probably.
I carried Hannah into the courtroom, trying my best to look emotionally fit and bursting with maternal instinct. We stood as the judge entered the room. I tried to suss out his political and religious leanings by watching him walk to the bench. He confirmed why we were all there. Then, God bless him, he said, "I like these kinds of cases because everyone leaves a winner."
I answered a few basic questions, mainly aimed at confirming that I understood that legal adoption means legal responsibility. Should Jane and I break up, I would still be legally responsible for Hannah’s support. After running through the rote questions and admonitions, the judge approved the adoption, and then passed out lollipops and posed for pictures. Weirdly, even now, the legal ties between Jane and me run most tightly through Hannah. Jane is legally her mother, as am I, but Jane and I still have no enforceable connection to each other beyond the paper trail we have forged through wills and powers of attorney.
I carefully folded a copy of the adoption order and placed it in my wallet, where it remains six years later. It declares that Jane and I are both, equally, the official parents of Hannah Elisabeth Klempnauer Miller. We are a fact. We are a family.
The French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss died last week, a few weeks shy of his 101st birthday. Levi-Strauss was considered "the father of modern anthropology." Beacon Press published English-language translations of two of his books: The Elementary Structures of Kinship (from Les Structures elementaires de la parente, translated by James Harle Bell, John Richard von Sturmer, and Rodney Needham) and Totemism (from Le Totemisme aujourdhui, translated by Rodney Needham), which remains in print today.
At the New York Times Room for Debate, Rashid Khalidi weighs in on the decision of Mahmoud Abbas to step down as leader of the Palestinian authority. "Mahmoud Abbas realized that he could not achieve even minimal Palestinian aspirations in negotiations with Israel after having the rug pulled out from under him twice by his patrons in Washington."
Today's post is from Susan Campbell, author of Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl. Campbell's writing has been recognized by the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors; National Women's Political Caucus; the Sunday Magazine Editors Association, and the Connecticut chapter of Society of Professional Journalists. She was also a member of the Hartford Courant's 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning team for breaking news. Be sure to check out her Dating Jesus blog.
While Maine's marriage equality supporters regroup after last Tuesday's defeat, the staff at Connecticut's marriage equality advocacy group Love Makes a Family prepares to douse
their lights forever.
In May, Maine legislators voted in favor of same-sex marriage and the
governor quickly signed the bill into law, but voters executed a
people's veto and rescinded marriage equality. The vote-- pushed onto
the ballot in no small part by our old friends at the National
Organization for Marriage-- gives Maine the dubious honor of being the
second state in the union to recently play now-you-have-it,
now-you-don't with gay and lesbian rights. California pulled back on its
promise of equality with Proposition 8 last year.
In both states, the battles were emotional and heartfelt-- and fraught
with misinformation. Opponents of same-sex marriage on both coasts
trotted out that tired canard that marriage equality would include
lessons about homosexuality in schools, thereby turning into homosexuals
a sea of children just waiting for their teachers' permission.
Today's post is from Eboo Patel, the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. Patel is the founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based institution building the global interfaith youth movement, and is a member of the Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Initiatives, where he is working to realize President Obama’s priority of interfaith cooperation. He writes "The Faith Divide", a featured blog on religion for the Washington Post, where this post originally appeared.
He called his wife who works for NPR, and his face got more grim as I heard him say:
"Are you sure he was a Muslim? Are you sure he was a Muslim?"
He hung up the phone and turned to me. "This is our worst nightmare."
Rabbi Saperstein knows there will be a thousand voices broadcasting the news that a Muslim opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas yesterday - the implication being, of course, that this act represents Islam. He knows how distorting that perception is for Muslims, and how dangerous that distortion is for America.
We received this note from Michael Patrick MacDonald about how he spent this past Monday, All Souls Day. MacDonald is the author of the critically acclaimed All Souls: A Family Story from Southie, a bestselling memoir of growing up in a poverty and violence stricken Boston neighborhood.
Spent today, All Souls Day, visiting students at four Boston Public Schools which use All Souls (and usually Easter Rising) in the classroom... I launched the entire Boston Public School marathon last week with an appearance at assembly for 150 Charlestown High School students who'd all been assigned All Souls. At Codman Academy today, students read passages of All Souls to me and talked about their personal connections to each passage, e.g. one young woman related to my outrage at the injustices in my brother Steven's case, telling me -- and the assembly of students and faculty -- that she experienced similar rage at her sisters imprisonment on murder charges. I was so moved by the experience at Codman Academy that I announced that this would become an annual institution, making pro bono appearances in the Boston Public Schools every year on All Souls Day (and the following days), thus bringing the intentions of the All Souls Day vigils we once held in South Boston, into the schools (where they are as relevant as ever).
Here's a picture from the Codman Academy website of MacDonald with students who participated in the event:
MacDonald visited several Boston schools: Charlestown High, Codman Academy, Fenway High School, Boston Day and Evening Academy, East Boston High School, and Boston Arts Academy, which is, incidentally, the setting for another Beacon Pres book: Linda Nathan's The Hardest Questions Aren't on the Test: Lessons from an Innovative Urban School. Here he's with students from Boston Arts Academy and with Linda Nathan: the two authors are holding each others' books in the picture.
It's been ten years since Beacon first published All Souls (which the Boston Globe named one of 100 Essential New England Books, and which readers currently have ranked #1 on that list), and in honor of that milestone, ads are running on the Red Line T trains, which pass under Beacon's offices in downtown Boston as well as through Southie.
Today's post is from David Chura, author ofI Don't Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup. Chura has worked with at-risk teenagers for forty years. His writing has appeared in the New York Times and multiple literary journals and anthologies, and he is a frequent lecturer and advisor on incarcerated youth.
There are 109 inmates serving life sentences without parole for non-homicide crimes they committed when they were 18 or younger. Some, put behind bars when they were 13 or 14, have been locked up for twenty or thirty years.
Those 109-- minors then, adults now in their prime, or at least they should be, if they weren't facing a slow, cruel death in jail-- are a part of something that is uniquely American. According to Amnesty International, the United States is the only country that imprisons children for life (the same country, the PEW Charitable Trust reported in 2008, that now incarcerates one out of every one hundred of its citizens).
This year the United States Supreme Court has agreed to consider two of those 109 cases. One involves a man who, at the age of 13, robbed and raped an elderly woman in 1989; the other was 16 when he took part in two break-ins in 2005. Each was sentenced by a Florida court to life without parole. The high court must decide whether such life imprisonment is "cruel and unusual punishment."
There are over 50 groups filing in support of these two inmates. It's a roll call of religious, legal, correctional, educational, medical and psychological professionals. As varied as the groups are, there's not much difference in their reasoning. All the briefs, whether based on spiritual belief or scientific research, come down to the same thing, to something that seems obvious to me: children change, develop, are redeemable; children are vulnerable to immense forces in their lives, forces that they can't control but sometimes act out of.
It seems like a lot of effort for two people (or 109, depending upon how you look at it) who, when they were young, did some pretty terrible things. But those hundreds of professionals and concerned citizens know that if we don't stop it now, there'll be a lot more than 109 kids facing the same fate, given the country's mood when it comes to kids and crime. It is a mood that was set into motion in the mid-1990s when some political scientists warned the public of the impending threat of young "super-predators," and so the jihad on juvenile crime began.
Beacon Broadside, a project of Beacon Press, is an online venue for essays, news items, and dispatches from respected writers, thinkers, and activists about our times.
