This Awesome Dad Will Be the Anna to His Young Son’s Elsa This Halloween
Two Virginia parents do not have time to deal with traditional, oppressive gender roles, as evidenced in the fabulous dress their 3-year-old son picked out for Halloween.
A Facebook photo from Chesapeake residents Paul Henson and Ashley Ramage showing their son Caiden trying on a Halloween costume is going viral, quickly lighting up social, local and national media — but not for the reasons you would think. Instead of trying on a superhero or monster costume like most boys his age, Caiden is dressed up as Princess Elsa (from the hit animated Disney film Frozen), clearly possessing the attitude required of an enchanted snow queen.
According to the Huffington Post, Henson and Ramage let Caiden pick any costume he wanted for Halloween, regardless of whether or not it was “for” a boy or girl, and that he has always had a special love for Princess Elsa, his favorite cartoon character.
“As children get older, they distance themselves from their parents. Why start that split sooner than they need to?” Henson told HuffPost. “It’s important for children to know that their parents will stand by them no matter what. Ashley and I will do whatever it takes to keep our son happy and not take his innocence and imagination from him.”
“Game on,” the father wrote of his reaction to his son’s request. “Keep your masculine bullshit and slutty kids costumes, Halloween is about children pretending to be their favorite characters.”
“I want other parents to realize that gender stereotypes are taught and learned behaviors,” Ramage added to HuffPost. “At 3 years old, kids are still developing, exploring and discovering. As parents we shouldn’t discourage their individuality.”
10 Ways to Make It Easier for Your Child to Come Out
October 11 is National Coming Out Day. Young people across the country are thinking about coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT*). Many have high hopes that coming out will give them relief. Maybe they’ve been hiding a secret for a long time and hunger for the freedom to be themselves with the people they love. Sadly, the one thing they may fear the most is rejection from their parents or caregivers. We can change this.
If your child is thinking about coming out, you probably don’t know about it. You might suspect that your child is LGBT*, or you may not have the slightest idea. Either way, it’s a good idea to be prepared for any possibility. Below are ways that parents and caregivers can make the days before and after coming out much easier for their children.
If Your Child Hasn’t Come Out
If your child is planning to come out, they may be watching for clues to guess how accepting and open you might be. Consider the following tips:
1. Don’t assume. Many parents assume our children will love and marry someone of the opposite sex. Most of us also assume that we know our children’s gender from the minute they are born, if not before. On the other hand, some of us may think we know our child is gay or transgender even though they haven’t said anything about it. Avoid jumping to conclusions. Respect your child’s need to discover and disclose their own identity when they are ready.
2. Recognize and address your concerns and fears. Many parents and caregivers have fears about having a gay or transgender child. It can make a difference to realize they’re not alone and to get your questions answered. If it’s hard for you to accept the idea that your child might be gay or transgender, here are resources that may help.
3. Show that you are open and accepting. If your child hears you use offensive language or say negative things about gay or transgender people, they will assume that it’s not safe to come out to you. Use respectful language when talking about people who are LGBT*. Watch TV programs that have LGBT* characters. Find ways to show acceptance without putting your child on the spot.
4. Be approachable and available. Make time and space for your child to be able to talk to you privately. Give them openings to talk about whatever is on their mind.
5. Show unconditional love in your actions and words. Tell your child that you love them for who they are and that nothing can change that. Show your love by treating your child with care and respect. This can help give your child the confidence to confide in you.
Your child just came out. Now what?
You may be relieved that they finally told you, frantic with fear that they will never live a happy life, or somewhere in between. Now what? Your acceptance is the one thing that can make the biggest difference in their health and well being.
1. Show unconditional love in your actions and words. Remind yourself how much you love your child. Tell your child that you love them and that nothing can change that. This may be the thing your child most needs to hear. Even if you are uncomfortable with the news, show affection and avoid saying things that are hurtful.
2. Believe your child. They have probably thought long and hard about this, maybe even agonized over it, before coming out to you. Asking questions like “Are you sure?”, “How do you know?”, “Is this a phase?” won’t make your child feel accepted. They may feel that you are hoping that their identity will go away. 3. Acknowledge the courage it took. Coming out to you may have been the bravest thing your child has ever done. Even if it’s hard to hear, let your child know that you appreciate their openness and honesty.
4. Recognize and address your own concerns and fears. If you aren’t thrilled with the news, you don’t have to fake it. It’s okay to let your child know that it is hard for you. Your child probably went through a process to accept their identity and you may need this too. Ask your child to be patient with you. Meantime, get the information and support you need.
5. Don’t out your child to others. Your child came out to you, but that doesn’t mean they are ready to be out with everyone. Respect their privacy. Ask permission before discussing it with others. If you need someone to talk to, find a way that you can do this without violating their trust.
As with any tips, take what makes sense to you and use your own judgment. Do your best, be forgiving of yourself, and always remember how much you love your child.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Liza Minnelli proves show must goes on – takes 200 mile Uber ride to make it to gig
Liza Minnelli learned very early on from her mother, Judy Garland, that the show must go on.
She proved that once again over the weekend.
Minnelli endured an impromptu overnight 200 mile Uber ride to Wilmington, North Carolina, in order to make a show after her flight from Charlotte was turned back due to bad weather.
Minnelli, 69, had already spent much of the day flying from Los Angeles to North Carolina and was on the connecting flight from Charlotte when the pilot turned the plane around due to extreme turbulence, according to the New York Post.
Minnelli and her musical collaborator, Cortés Alexander, were driven by Ahmed El-Awady, a former Egyptian Olympic handball player who competed at the 1992 and ’96 games.
The ride cost $200 and took four hours.
‘He drove all night and finally delivered Liza to her hotel at 6:30 a.m,’ her rep said.
In the end, Minnelli didn’t disappoint her audience of 1,500 at Cape Fear Community College’s new Humanities & Fine Arts Center where she performed with the North Carolina Symphony.
The showbiz legend was paid $125,000 for the appearance, according to StarTribuneOnline.
Ex-Ex-Gay Alan Chambers Talks About Why Conversion Therapy Is B.S.
Once the face of the ex-gay movement, ex-ex-gayAlan Chambers is finally opening up about his dark past as president of the now defunct Exodus International, an organization that aimed to turn gay people straight.
Chambers recently sat down with The Atlanticto plug his new book, My Exodus. He began by talking about his current sexual orientation, which he understatedly describes as “complicated,” admitting that he is still very much attracted to men, but that he also maintains a “good” sex life with his wife, Leslie.
“While many relationships are built on sex, ours just includes sex,” Chambers said. “We love it and value it because we worked hard for it.”
He also talked about his antigay past, both as the leader of Exodus International and as a lobbyist.
In 2006, Chambers campaigned for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. And in 2008, he lobbied in support of Prop. 8, which re-banned same-sex marriage in California after it had already been made legal. But over time he says his thinking “evolved.”
“As I heard more stories and evaluated my own realities,” Chambers said, “I realized change in orientation was not possible or happening.”
In 2013, Chambers abruptly announced that Exodus would be closing its doors for good.
“Shutting down Exodus dealt a fatal blow to the whole idea that orientation can be changed and that God somehow loves you more because of the choices you make,” he recalled. “Some ministries still promote this idea, but they are not going to achieve the same level of success that Exodus had. That position is more of a minority than it has ever been.”
Today, Chambers has a much different message for people struggling with their sexual orientations than he did just a few years ago.
“For those who cannot reconcile their faith and sexuality, they can be affirmed in their choice of celibacy and devote their lives to causes more life giving than ‘ridding themselves of the demon homosexuality,’” he said. “And the gay Christian community can be affirmed in who they already are: beloved.”
Watch This Gay Guy Decide Which Sexy Costume to Wear on Halloween–With Help From His Mom: VIDEO
As Halloween fast approaches, many of you are no doubt wondering what you will dress up as for All Hallow’s Eve.
It goes without saying that Halloween has become the one night a year when you can dress as slutty as you want and no one can say anything bad about you.
Well, in theory at least.
Gay YouTube-r Jack Merridrew, finding himself “single as f*ck” this Halloween, decided he would hit the town in “incredibly sexy, slutty Halloween costumes.”
But how to choose which sexy, slutty Halloween costumes should make the cut? Merridrew turned to his mother for her advice. He tried on 4 different sexy costumes and had her rank them based on which ones she thought would be most likely to lure boys. The end result is both visually stimulating and also adorable and hilarious.
From mom snapping pics of her son to send to her friends.
To Merridrew warning mom before showing off one his more risqué ensembles.
WATCH: Hillary Clinton Says Kim Davis Got What She Deserved
At a campaign event at Cornell College in Iowa this morning, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton offered a pointed critique of antigay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis‘s ongoing defiance of the Supreme Court decision mandating nationwide marriage equality.
“What would you do about somebody if they were to do something like what Kim Davis did recently?” a young person asked the Democratic front-runner, referring to the clerk who spent six days in jail for contempt of court after she cited her Christian faith and refused to issue marriage licenses to anycouples in Rowan County, Ky., to avoid licensing same-sexcouples.
“I think what happened to Kim Davis was the right thing,” Clinton replied. “She violated the law, and therefore she was arrested. And when she was released, she had to agree that she would not stand in the way of doing her public duty under the Constitution.
“So I actually think that she was treated as she should have been treated,” Clinton continued, before affirming that “people are totally entitled to their personal, private beliefs.”
“When you take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, that is your job,” she said. “Whether you agree with a decision or not, we have the rule of law. You have to follow the law. … You either enforce the law or you resign from your public position. That is exactly what should have happened.”
Clinton previously discussed Davis’s extralegal saga in a Saturday address to volunteers of the Human Rights Campaign volunteers, but declined to mention Davis by name in that instance. Instead, she focused her ire on Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, who was “literally standing in the courthouse door in Kentucky, calling for people to join him in resisting a Supreme Court ruling, celebrating a county clerk who’s breaking the law by denying other Americans their constitutional rights.”
Watch Clinton’s remarks on Davis in Iowa today below, via The Washington Post.
When the Supreme Court invalidated same-sex marriage bans in June, the Justices acknowledged they had the kids in mind.
In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy cited the infringement of the interests of children being raised by same-sexcouples as one reason for the Court’s ruling.
Who are these kids? An estimated 220,000 children under the age of 18 are being raised in same-sex families in the United States. Half are nonwhite.
Protecting kids’ rights
My research, scholarship and advocacy efforts have focused on children, particularly black children, for the past 10 years. In an amicus brief filed in Obergefell — the Supreme Court case that ended same-sex marriage bans — my coauthors and I highlighted the legal and economic deprivations children in these families suffer when their parents can’t marry.
We cited landmark Supreme Court cases that make clear that children should not be punished, stigmatized or discriminated against by government action.
Brown v Board of Education, a landmark civil rights case, was one of the cases we relied on because it represents a high-water mark in the Supreme Court’s recognition of children’s constitutional rights. The plaintiffs in that case were black children asserting their constitutional rights against discrimination by state governments mandating segregated schools.
The Supreme Court cited our amicus brief to support its conclusion that constitutional protection of same-sex marriage affords children “the permanency and stability important to children’s best interests.”
Despite this acknowledgment, the Supreme Court’s opinion is preoccupied with the rights of adults and the expansion of the right to marry. It leaves children in same-sex families at risk.
Legal challenges
Half of the children being raised by same-sexcouples are children of color. Lucy Nicholson/REUTERS
Children born into same-sex families frequently are biologically related to only one parent, and the law recognizes only that one parent. The legal status of the child’s relationship with her nonbiological parent varies from state to state.
Had the Obergefell decision been more focused on the rights of children in same-sex families, its ruling could have ensured that children’s relationships with their nonbiological parents were legally recognized and protected.
However, the opinion failed to reference children’s rights explicitly. As a result, as recent developments in state courts reveal, the rights of children in same-sex families remain vulnerable.
No marital presumption
The Espejo-Mansell family celebrates the end of the same-sex ban. Lucy Nicholson/REUTERS
The law referred to as the marital or paternity presumption automatically recognizes a legal parent-child relationship between children born into a marriage and their mothers’ husbands – without considering biology. In most states, this law affords legally enforceable rights to both the father and the child.
A New York court recently ruled that the presumption does not apply to same-sex spouses, reasoning that the “presumption of legitimacy … is one of a biological relationship, not of legal status.”
In Florida, three sets of same-sex spouses filed suit in federal court challenging the refusal of state officials to put both parents’ names on their children’s birth certificates.
Second-parent adoptions and parenting judgments, which are alternative ways of creating a legal parent-child relationship, could protect children’s relationships with their nonbiological parents. However, even in the dozen or so states that permit adoptions by same-sex spouses, those adoptions are not always recognized in sister states.
Three months after the Obergefell decision, the Alabama Supreme Court refused to recognize a lesbian mother’s adoption of her three nonbiological children granted by a Georgia court in 2007. The court reasoned that Alabama does not need to respect the adoptions because it determined the Georgia court didn’t properly apply Georgia law when granting them.
Loss of wealth
Even after the Obergefell decision, children are being deprived of important legal, economic and social benefits and protections that would result from a legal parental relationship with both of their parents.
Children in same-sex families are losing out on worker’s compensation benefits, social security benefits, state health insurance, civil service benefits, inheritance and wrongful death proceeds. Denial of these benefits could deprive children of thousands – or in rare cases, even millions – of dollars.
Children can also be deprived of the benefit of parental decision-making authority when it comes to health decisions, securing a passport and registering for school.
Imagine a boy is being raised by two mothers. If his biological mother dies, his “other mother” would have no custody claim. The boy could end up in foster care.
Such laws can have a powerful and adverse financial and legal impact.
According to the Williams Institute, which the Supreme Court cited in Obergefell, same-sex families raising children are twice as likely to earn incomes near the poverty level.
Many of these children are already challenged by experiences informed by their race, ethnicity and socieoeconomic status. Depriving this demographic of important financial and legal protections renders them even more vulnerable. It also compromises the permanency and stability the majority of the Supreme Court recognized as important to children’s interests.
The next round of litigation relating to same-sex families should focus on children’s rights to legal parentage by both of their parents. Children should be the plaintiffs in these cases, and like the children in Brown v. Board of Education, their rights should command constitutional protection.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
12 fun utensils to put a spin on your baking routine
Tonight saw viewers all over Britain switch on their TV to watch the final of the Great British Bake-Off – probably the country’s most anticipated television event of 2015 (and the writer, just to mention, was firmly rooting for Nadiya).
While we’re not as creative – or as culinarily gifted – as the contestants, we know that fun is one of the most important parts of baking.
From colorful spatulas to novelty bakeware, there are plenty of ways to add that tiny extra spark to your baking, so we have assembled some of our favorite utensils and accessories to mix up your kitchen.
Cybermen and Daleks are a lot less intimidating if you can defeat them with a single bite – throw in the TARDIS, K9 and the Doctor’s iconic sonic screwdriver and you’re in for a winning set of biscuits.
These can be used for anything, from roasting vegetables to whipping up a pasta bake – but we do recommend you make use of their perfect form to create delicious pies or a zingy lemon tart.
Sometimes, you want to pass a message across in the sweetest way possible and this clever stamp can sure help you with that!
Simply spell out your own message, stamp and bake your cookies and you’ve got your own, sweet mailing system, all without messing about with icing and all that jazz.
Unlike its big brother, this fully functional Death Star cookie jar isn’t capable of destroying a whole planet in one go – but you may notice it having an effect on your waistline. Especially around Christmas.
Wearing a cheerfully colorful harlequin costume over his round belly, Alessi’s Fatman stand hides a clever secret: unfolding into three stainless steel plates, it wouldn’t just make Mary Berry smile in delight but also offers plenty of space to serve your favorite teatime treats, from biscuits to delicate fondant fancies.
Turn the tables on boring, egg-shaped kitchen timers by making this fun vinyl player-shaped timer tell you when your cake is ready to come out of the oven.
Sure, every home should have a good loaf and a good round baking tin, but no-one can resists funny novelty bakeware – whether it’s a castle, monkey or otherwise funnily shaped thing, it’s sure to make everyone smile (and will prevent any cake-modeling disasters, for that matter).
Even if you don’t like Taylor Swift, just reading this probably got you singing – so just imagine what would happen if you had this set in your kitchen, ready to make you tea and cookie break just that tiny bit better.
For a lot of people, learning that someone they know and care about is LGBT can open a range of emotions, from confused to concerned, awkward to honored. HRC.org
Tennessee Commissioner Seeks Resolution Asking God To Spare County From Impending Gay Marriage Wrath
We’re not sure what’s crazier — drafting a resolution asking God to spare the citizens of Blount County from a Sodom & Gomorrah-style wrath in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality, or actually thinking such a resolution would reach its target audience of one.
But whatever the underlying motivation, County Commissioner Karen Miller sponsored the so-called “wrath of God resolution,” hoping for a lively debate on the subject.
The resolution states: “We adopt this resolution before God that He pass us by in His Coming Wrath and not destroy our County as He did Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities. As the Passover Lamb was a means of salvation to the ancient Children of Israel, so we stand upon the safety of the Lamb of God to save us.”
We weren’t aware that God took flight-pattern requests when planning a good Old Testament wrath, but hey, we’re open to learning.
Except no discussion was had — the commission swiftly voted 10-5 not to take up the agenda.
Over 100 protesters with the Tennessee Equality Project were on hand to lend their voices to the meeting, and though they were successful in stalling it, they still expect a fight.
“As of tonight, for tonight, this is a victory,” Tennessee Equality Project committee chair Gwen Schablik said. “We were able to drop this issue tonight but are still unsure of what is to come.”
We’re not sure what’s crazier — drafting a resolution asking God to spare the citizens of Blount County from a Sodom & Gomorrah-style wrath in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality, or actually thinking such a resolution would reach its target audience of one.