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  • Crossing Borders, Expanding Equality, and Seeking Justice

    Today’s post is from Patricia A. Gozemba, co-author (with Karen Kahn and Marilyn Humphries) of Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America’s First legal Same-Sex Marriages
    (Beacon Press, 2007). You can read more at www.courtingequality.com

    Equality is a core value in Massachusetts. More than two weeks have passed since our Massachusetts borders fell to the further expansion of equality. When Governor Deval Patrick signed the repeal of the 1913 law that prohibited out-of-state same-sex couples from coming to our state to marry, our state borders became more permeable and we are glad of it. At the July 31, 2008, signing ceremony, Patrick said, "the repeal will confirm a simple truth: that is, in Massachusetts, equal means equal."

    In 2003, Massachusetts’ Goodridge v DPH decision, gave hope to same-sex couples just as in 1948 California with Perez v. Sharp gave hope to interracial couples. Two court decisions, equally visionary. Most recently, California, a state now often associated with border worries, showed the way on marriage equality with a sweeping court decision on May 15, 2008, that welcomed all same-sex couples to marry there regardless of their residence. No question this bold expansion of civil rights cleared the way for Massachusetts to move ahead in this worrisome presidential election year and match California’s commitment to democracy. Bi-coastal equality on the march.

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  • Condolences

    Just as I was about to head out the door, I received this email from Maxine Giammo, a publicist here at Beacon:

    "Reading
    today’s lovely interview with Suzanne Kamata over at the blog “Creative
    Construction”    , I realized that some of us at Beacon may not be aware of the recent loss
    experienced by Love You to Pieces contributor, Vicki Forman, whose son
    Evan passed away unexpectedly in late July.

    Vicki’s
    essay on Evan’s premature birth, “Coming to Samsara,” is the first selection in Love You to Pieces. Vicki has been an enthusiastic promoter of the book, most recently
    speaking about it at the BlogHer conference in July.

    You
    can read more of Vicki’s beautiful writing about Evan on her blog: http://www.vickiforman.com/. The
    outpouring of support online has been phenomenal and Beacon joins in extending
    our deepest sympathies to Vicki and her family."

  • Link Roundup: Christian Patriarchy, Climate Change, Fiction for a Better World

    Beacon Broadside will be on vacation next week, which is to say that the editor of Beacon Broadside will be on vacation. While I will miss you all, I’ll leave you with some reading to keep you busy.

    This Week’s Beacon Broadside posts:

    The Summer Games: Raising an Olympian

    Mark Hyman on why Debbie Phelps, mother of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, is a great mom.

    Digging the Dig

    John Hanson Mitchell gives the Big Dig some love.

    Redefining the Pill: Bush Administration Calls Contraception "Abortion"
    Carole Joffe on recent actions taken by the Bush Administration that would define all contraception as abortion. 

    Good Reading Elsewhere:

    Kathryn Joyce, on the Canadian show SexTV, talks about Quiverfull, a growing sect in the Christian patriarchy movement that is the subject of her forthcoming book. The excerpt of the show also features a woman who was excommunicated from her church for divorcing her husband.

    Fred Pearce explains why trade talks should be important to climate change activists.

    Jeremy Adam Smith at Daddy Dialectic discusses race with his four-year-old son.

    Jennifer Nix calls for a Progressive Literary Zeitgeist.

    On his Inheriting the Trade blog, Thomas DeWolf says good-bye to departing Beacon publicist Leah Riviere. She will be sorely missed by everyone here at Beacon Press, as will departing managing editor Lisa Sacks. Warmest wishes to both of them!

    Beacon Broadside will be back in action Tuesday, August 19th. See you then!

  • The Summer Games: Raising Olympian Michael Phelps

    The opening ceremonies are upon us and Mark Hyman shares with us today a story of the parent of one of the many Olympians representing the U.S. in this summer's games. Hyman is contributing editor for sports business at BusinessWeek, and writes frequently about the business of sports, sports and law, and about the role of adults in youth sports. His book on the impact of parents, coaches and other adults on youth sports, Until It Hurts, will be published by Beacon Press in April 2009. Hyman's writing may be seen most often in BusinessWeek and Sports Business Journal, and has also appeared in Sports Illustrated, TV Guide, Inc., Best Life, Child Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."

    2118Not that long ago, I spent some time in the principal's office – about 45 minutes in a hardback chair, if I recall correctly.

    I've been thinking about that visit and about the principal of Windsor Mill Middle School outside Baltimore, Debbie Phelps. Debbie will be in Beijing for the next two weeks for the Summer Olympics, which begin Friday. Her 23-year-old son, Michael, will be there too. Michael is the iconic American swimmer of whom much is expected by U.S. sports fans. He will be the favorite in every race he enters during the Summer Games. A record eight gold medals is a possibility. Fewer than six for Phelps would be a stinging disappointment. It's a good thing Michael Phelps has the broadest shoulders on the planet. He'll need them to carry those outsized expectations.

    That trip to the principal's office was connected to a book I've just written for Beacon Press. It'll be out next April and the title is Until It Hurts. The book explores youth sports in America and the role (often misguided) of the adults in charge. The sports world we've created for kids isn't really about kids at all – that's the point of view expressed and documented in the book. More and more, it reflects the aspirations of adults, well-meaning and wrong. In short, adults like me. The regrettable result is that many kids are being pushed beyond physical and emotional limits. More in April.

    The only way I knew to get started on the project was to strike out in every possible direction, interviewing parents, coaches, doctors and, in one case, the mother of a champion Olympic swimmer.

    When I went to see Debbie, it was evident that I wasn't speaking to just another sports mom. We spoke about a trip she was planning to see Michael swim. Rome or Vienna or someplace similarly distant. She mentioned her own literary project, a book she would be writing about her experiences poolside, a guide to raising a humble, well-adjusted world record holder.

    In other ways, I was struck that her story was so utterly unexceptional.

    She had three kids, Michael being the youngest. She and her then husband lived in rural Maryland in a home surrounded by five acres. "I got the kids involved in as much as I could: baseball softball, gymnastics, tap, ballet, scouts. Michael was never a scout. But the girls were scouts," she told me.

    The family belonged to swim club. Debbie says the main attraction was for her children to learn water safety. She wanted them to conquer any fears early in life.  In short order, the two girls were on the club swim team. Then champions. Then dreaming of the Olympics.

    The Phelps sisters were such hotshots, a swim club in Baltimore more or less recruited them to join the swim team. Debbie shuttled them to practices with a new baby. Boy Michael spent hours, days, at the pool. "Michael grew up with the smell of chlorine. It was such a natural environment for him," Debbie explained.

    There's more, obviously. I devote several pages to the Phelps family in my book.

    As I sat with Debbie Phelps, I asked how she saw the role and responsibilities of a parent whose child is a superstar athlete. She told me that parents frequently approach her, asking the same thing. With a laugh, she also explained that they tell her she is a role model for them. Hard to say exactly what about Debbie they were modeling. Or maybe not so hard. My guess: raising the best swimmer in the world.

    "People often wait around to speak with me, to ask questions. Like, 'My son was 9 he was doing this, and when he was 11 his time was that.' They're looking for answers. I just say, parent your child. Love them for who they are, whether they swim the fastest (butter)fly or finish eighth in their heat.

    "To me, there's a very fine line between the athlete, coach and parent. Everyone has their roles. If you sat here right now and told me you'd give me $200 million to recite Michael's world fly record, I could not tell you that. Yet there are parents whose child is trying to beat my son who can spit out those things out. I don't get involved in that. I talk to Michael as a parent."

    I asked Debbie what concerns her about the parents she runs into at swim meets.

    The answer was somewhat impolitic. Yet it sounded like one that would come easily to a middle school principal. "They nag too much," she says.

    "They go to an athletic event and their kid isn't doing their best time. They get upset with the child. They think that it always has to be better, better, better, better, not realizing that even for the most talented swimmers it's a progression."

    "Parents just need to chill. Realize that it doesn't help to set expectations, especially unrealistic ones. Put yourself in their shoes. Do you map things out so carefully in your own life? Such as, 'I am going to be CEO of a company'? Does it fall out in nice little pockets? Same with kids. Their progression is not going to fall into nice little pockets. There may not be another Michael Phelps for decades, even though I have parents tell me their son is on the same track." As I left her office, I asked Debbie to let me know when her book was coming out, and told her I would very much like to read it. I suggested a publication date well after mine.

    You might also be interested in Mark Hyman's Youth Sports Parents blog and his BusinessWeek article about overuse injuries and youth sports. The Baltimore Sun recently ran this article about Debbie Phelps and Jeanne Hoff, mother of Olympic swimmer Katie Hoff.

    Related articles

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    Michael Phelps conducts a swim lesson in Rio
    Michael Phelps Named Fittest Man Of All Time

  • Digging the Dig

    Mention the Big Dig to anyone from the Boston metro area, and you're sure to get a response. The decades-long project to move Boston's highway traffic (the Central Artery) underground has been much maligned and dissected in the local media. Today's post, from John Hanson Mitchell, gives an overview of Boston's problematic relationship with vehicular traffic and reminds us of why the Big Dig is a boon to the city. Mitchell is the author of numerous books, including The Paradise of All These Parts: A Natural History of Boston, and editor of the award-winning magazine Sanctuary, published by the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

    In spite of skyrocketing budget overruns, delayed construction, floods, ceiling collapses, and all the other ills that big construction projects are prone to, the Big Dig is far better than what used to be there. A short walk along the Rose Kennedy Greenway on a weekend after noon in summer is a case in point — families picnicking, flowers blooming, grass growing, and children sporting under the classical Italianate water spouts.

    It's been a while since the Central Artery came down, newcomers to the city may not even remember it, but in my mind, that THING, that veritable Berlin Wall, was the symbol of all that went wrong in this city back in the dark hours of the 1940s and 1950s when auto-crazed urban planners began to construct what they called without a hint of irony, "the New Boston."

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  • Redefining the Pill: Bush Administration Calls Contraception “Abortion”

    Today's blog post is from Carole Joffe, author of Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to provide Abortion before and after Roe v Wade (Beacon Press, 1996) and a professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis.  She is currently at work on a book about contemporary abortion provision.

    Joffee
    Fans of Jewish folklore are familiar with tales from the town of Chelm, the legendary center of foolishness. Chelm's citizens unfailingly choose actions guaranteed to achieve the opposite of what was desired. The children need more milk? Buy a billy goat! The synagogue needs a new roof? Build a new floor! There has been much about the eight long years of the George W. Bush presidency that has made one think s/he was living in Chelm (remember how we were told the U.S. invasion of Iraq would be greeted by Iraqis bearing flowers and sweets?). Now, in the waning days of this presidency comes a move that would no doubt earn special respect from the people of Chelm because of its tortured logic. Draft regulations now circulating in the Department of Health and Human Services would redefine many forms of contraception (including most birth control pills) as "abortions."

    So an administration that has done everything in its power to oppose abortion–making sure its appointments to the Supreme Court and other key positions are reliably anti-abortion, signing a bill banning a rarely used but sometimes medically necessary abortion procedure and so on–now goes after the main thing that can prevent unwanted pregnancies? In true Chelm-like fashion, this Administration is proposing a policy that virtually assures there will be more abortions.

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  • Dissenting: A View from the 1930s

    Today’s post is from Mark Tushnet, author of I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases. Tushnet is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Previously a professor of law at Georgetown University and University of Wisconsin, Tushnet is the author of numerous books, including A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court and the Future of Constitutional Law.

    TushnetI’ve been doing some research on the Supreme Court during the 1930s, and have run across some interesting comments from Justice Harlan Fiske Stone on dissenting. Stone was a progressive Republican appointed to the Court by Calvin Coolidge. He served as an Associate Justice under Chief Justices William Howard Taft and then Charles Evans Hughes, before Franklin Roosevelt appointed him Chief Justice in 1941.

    During the 1920s, Taft ruled the Court with a firm hand, and strongly discouraged dissents. And, even after Hughes took over, it was common for a justice to dissent with a simple notation: “Agreeing with the court below, I dissent,” or the like. As the 1930s went on, though, the number and length of dissents increased.

    The reason, pretty clearly, was that liberal and progressive dissenters were increasingly dismayed at what they saw as the majority’s radical conservatism. Yet, that explains dissenting but not really writing long dissents. And Stone, in private correspondence, fumbled around for explanations for his practice.

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  • Tragic Shooting at Knoxville Church

    Everyone here at Beacon Press is deeply saddened by the deadly
    shooting last Sunday at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
    in Knoxville, in which two people were killed and seven others injured.
    Police reports indicate that the shooter targeted the church for its "liberal leanings."

    We extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of
    the victims, to the congregation and to the Knoxville community. The Unitarian
    Universalist Association has created this page to
    provide updates. Chris Walton at Philocrites
    and many other UU bloggers have been
    providing extensive coverage and commentary on this tragic assault.

  • Link Roundup: Foreclosures, Swing Voters, Farmers Sharing the Bounty

    At the Root, Kai Wright discusses the hit black homeowners are taking in the mortgage foreclosure crisis, a topic he addressed earlier in this excellent article at The Nation. Kai has previously contributed to Beacon Broadside on gay teens and James Baldwin.

    David Moore deconstructs some sloppy NYTimes poll analysis on Obama and the racial divide at the Huffington Post.

    Mark Winne continues his blogging at Slow Food Nation, discussing a program in Bellingham, WA, where volunteers harvest surplus produce to help stock the local food banks. The Nashville City Paper had this review of Winne’s Closing the Food Gap last week.

    At the Boston Globe, Howard Zinn reminds John McCain and Barack Obama that "no one wins in a war." Also at the Globe, a new religion blog from Michael Paulson. (Thanks, Michael, for the link to our post from Forrest Church.)

    University of Wisconsin math prof Jordan Ellenberg, at his blog, Quomodocumque, challenges John Tierney’s dismissal of the gender gap in the sciences. Maybe Tierney, who seems to think that "women on average just aren’t as interested as men are in these disciplines," should read about Maria Mitchell.

    We missed this when it originally posted, but just after Independence Day the LA Times had this article on the Jefferson Bible:

    The big question now, said Lori Anne Ferrell, a professor of early modern history and literature at Claremont Graduate University, is this:
    "Can you imagine the reaction if word got out that a president of the United States cut out Bible passages with scissors, glued them onto paper and said, ‘I only believe these parts?’ "

    And in the department of "Wow, I feel old," the naked baby on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind
    is now 17. They grow up so fast!

  • What’s Wrong with Gay (or Straight) Parents Raising Gay Kids?

    Today’s post is from Matt Kailey, the author of Just Add Hormones: An Insider’s Guide the Transsexual Experience (Beacon Press, 2005), the editor of Focus on the Fabulous: Colorado GLBT Voices (Johnson Books, 2007), and the managing editor of Out Front Colorado, Colorado’s oldest and largest GLBT publication.

    KaileyAnother anti-homosexual brouhaha is brewing. Psychologist Trayce L. Hansen has reviewed nine studies that examined the sexual orientation of children raised by same-sex parents and has concluded that children raised by same-sex parents "have a 4 to 10 times greater likelihood of developing a non-heterosexual preference than other children."

    I’m not going to try to debunk Dr. Hansen’s limited findings. Basically, what she did was examine studies that found few, if any, differences between children raised by same-sex and opposite-sex parents (and those differences that were found tended to favor the children raised by same-sex parents) and deconstructed them in order to find some flaw. I have no doubt that someone will deconstruct Dr. Hansen’s own methods and find some flaw as well – this is what researchers do. And Dr. Hansen, who has written before about the "problems" of children raised by same-sex couples, and who appears to be a psychological darling of the religious right set, seems to have entered into her current project with an agenda already in place, making her "findings" suspect at best. However, none of that matters.

    Let’s just say, for one brief, hallucinatory moment, that Dr. Hansen’s findings are correct and that children raised by same-sex parents do have a "4 to 10 times greater likelihood of developing a non-heterosexual preference than other children." So what?

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