words of wisdom on NPR

Just thought I'd share this as I think it's a new mantra for this household:

If you always think what you've always thought,
  You'll always feel what you've always felt.
If you always feel what you've always felt,
  You'll alwayd do what you've always done.
If you always do what you've always done,
  You'll always get what you've always got.
If you always get what you've always got,
  You'll always think what you've always thought.

Beacon Journal | 02/12/2006 | Gay-adoption ban unlikely to pass

Beacon Journal | 02/12/2006 | Gay-adoption ban unlikely to pass

slightly reassuring, as is

Beacon Journal | 02/12/2006 | Gay-adoption ban unlikely to pass

Beacon Journal | 02/12/2006 | Gay-adoption ban unlikely to pass

slightly reassuring, as is

"State legislator proposes ban on adoption by homosexuals"

(link)

Not just homosexuals banned from adoption as the title suggests, but from fostering too... as well as bisexuals and transexuals. Republicans like this make me sick. They're twisting the research from what I can see, claiming that this is about "best outcomes" for kids because "research shows that kids do better with a mom and a dad"... no... research shows kids do better with more adults involved in their rearing, that two-parent homes are beneficial. What gender those adults are is not all that essential.

And anyway, following that logic, should single parents be barred from fostering and adopting? How about families that don't have a habit of sharing meals at the dinner table, sans TV? Research has shown a major correlation between the number of meals a family shares together at a table in an average week and achievement outcomes.

What it really boils down to is stability. Kids need stability and predictability, especially kids in the foster system. How about requiring certain standards of stability in the households that these kids are placed in, such as several years of estabilished couplehood, having lived in the same town for at least a year, demonstrated ability by at least one member of the household to hold a job? These are factors that make a real difference in outcomes for kids, not a thinly veiled attempt to fit personal bigotry to peer-reviewed research and turn that into law. Limiting the pool of potental parents for these already "unwanted" children helps no one. What next, bring back the institutional orphanages because there aren't enough "acceptable" foster parents?

Part of this is a knee-jerk reaction to the embarrassment about the family with severely retarded adopted children that they were putting to bed in cages (allegedly for the children's safety). Hello, legislaters... that was a HETEROSEXUAL, LEGALLY MARRIED couple. The proposal you're putting forth now would have had absolutely no impact on preventing that embarrassment. Heck, realistically, openly homosexual couples are more likely to be on their BEST parenting behavior because they KNOW they're under a microscope - we should be RECRUITING them, imnsho.

*growls*

*sighs*

urg. Ohio, showing it's ugly midwesterness.

edit: the actual text of the legislation is even more horrible than the article makes it out to be. It's online here: http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=126_HB_515 especially wonderful is the section defining who is "transgendered" and therefore not elligible for foster/adoptive parenting:

(3) "Transgender" means an individual who may be classified according to an accepted nosology, such as the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, as having a gender identity disorder, or characterized by either of the following:

(a) A strong and persistent cross-gender identification;

(b) Persistent discomfort with that individual's sex or sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex. [emphasis added]

So... basically.. if you're not a good little toe-the-status-quo-line heterosexual, from the wording of this ala Leave It To Beaver mentality we women should all be wearing skirts 24/7 with warm cookies ready for the kids when they get home from school, then guess what, YOU'RE TRANSGENDERED!!!

*screams*

[end rant]

Reading pleasure

A local mama I know is working on a novel and posting it to a blog for folks to read.  I'm horrible about commenting on it since I see her all the time and just give feedback that way, but I know she'd love to have more readers.  Not sure if my saying something will really encourage that (especially since I already pointed it out to Serena, Sabrina, and Garvin personally) since I don't exactly have a high readership, but who knows.  It's in the mythic realism genre, which is my favorite style when it doesn't go all gorey.  We'll see where she goes with it.  Neil Gaiman I like but he can get too gory for me so if she goes that route then I might stop reading.

Here's the link