Support of adoption by LGBT individuals and couples on the White House website? It is amazing, but the White House doesn't control adoption law. States do that, and, like Arkansas in the last election, states can decide to limit adoption to married couples, to single people who live alone, or to whomever they want (subject to Constitutional challenge like that of the ACLU to the Arkansas law).
For updates on state, as well as federal, politics, and on movement building and racial justice and trans issues and all sorts of things, head to Denver next week for Creating Change, the annual conference sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The conference begins with two day-long institutes on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by a nine workshop sessions and four plenaries through Sunday afternoon.
I'll be there, doing a Beyond Marriage 2009 workshop, with Nicky Grist of Alternatives to Marriage Project, Terry Boggis of Center Kids, and immigration activist Debanuj DasGupta. The whole program book is now on line, so you can check it out yourself. Freedom to Marry will be there, and certainly there will be talk of marriage and a Prop 8 debrief. But this is the place if your issue is NOT marriage and you want to connect to activists from around the country.
I'm excited about many of the participants, but I'll just highlight two. Pam Chamberlain of Political Research Associates will be there, and her group does critical work on fighting the right wing (and no, they're not going away just because we elected Barack Obama). PRA has recently published scathing reports on what's wrong with federal marriage promotion. John D'Emilio will also be speaking, and his article in the Gay and Lesbian Review remains one of the clearest and most scathing critiques there is of the gay rights movement fight for marriage.
If you come to the conference, please come to Beyond Marriage 2009 and introduce yourself to me!