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Soulforce Asks Time Magazine to Check Dobson's Facts About LGBT Families LGBT Organization Launches Online Petition

For Immediate Release

Contact: Paige Schilt, Director of Media and Public Relations
Cell: 512-659-1771 Email: paige@soulforce.org
Website: www.soulforce.org
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(Lynchburg, VA) - Soulforce has launched an online petition asking the editors of Time magazine to check James Dobson's facts about lesbian and gay parenting.

In this week's Time (12/18/06), Dobson responds to the news of Mary Cheney's pregnancy by once again invoking "30 years of social-science evidence" to support his claim that children do best "when raised by their married mother and father."

In spite of Dobson's reputation as a benevolent family therapist, his views on lesbian and gay parenting do not reflect the mainstream of American professional organizations concerned with researching and promoting children's wellbeing. In a 2004 policy statement, the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy reported "no evidence that same-sex couples or family units vary significantly from heterosexual couples or family units in terms of aspirations, hopes and goals, or in outcomes for children."

In response to Dobson's editorial, Soulforce contacted Dr. Christopher R. Martell, President of the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues. According to Dr. Martell:

"Over and again the data show that a loving and safe home environment is important, not the gender of the parents. The mainstream research is so clear on this matter that the American Psychological Association's resolution on Sexual Orientation, Parents, and Children, which was adopted by the APA Council of Representatives in July, 2004, states: 'the APA supports the protection of parent-child relationships through the legalization of joint adoptions and second parent adoptions of children being reared by same-sex couples.'"

"The American Psychological Association, one of the world's largest mental health organizations, would not have supported the protection of legalized adoption by gay and lesbian parents if the data had suggested that children were at risk in such households."

Time has a history of excellent coverage of LGBT issues. In recent years, the magazine has been nominated multiple times for GLAAD media awards. According to Soulforce Media Director Paige Schilt, "We applaud Time's past coverage. With this petition we are asking the editors to continue this tradition by checking Dobson's facts on lesbian and gay parenthood."

Schilt continued, "Soulforce and other organizations have repeatedly documented Dobson's misleading statements about the research on LGBT families. In the interest of journalistic integrity, publications such as Time must contextualize his statements with evidence from credible, peer-reviewed research."

The online petition can be found at www.soulforce.org/petition/2

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Soulforce is a national LGBT social justice and civil rights organization. Our goal is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.

TIME Magazine, June 30, 2003
Time & Life Bldg.-Rockefeller Ctr., New York, NY, 10020
(Fax: 212-522-0601 ) (EMAIL:  letters@time.com )
( http://www.time.com/time )
http://www.time.com/time/generations/article/0,9171,1101030630-460203,00.html
  
GENERATIONS/LIFESTYLES
Being Out at 65
Gay retirement communities are catching on fast
By Wendy Cole, Palmetto
       Nature has it fixed so that women often outlive their husbands.  So
it's no surprise to find the gender ratio skewed to female at most
retirement communities.  Stroll the grounds at one such vibrant development
near Fort Myers, Fla., and you're apt never to even see a man.  But that
doesn't stop its 300 female residents from enjoying busy social lives,
competing in tennis by day and partying it up at dances in the evenings.
That's because these women are part of the first predominantly lesbian
retirement community of its size in the U.S.  "I still have to pinch myself
that this isn't a dream," says Mary Jeanne Walsh, a retired Chase Manhattan
bank vice president who moved into her attractive two-bedroom home three
years ago.  "When I was younger, I never would have imagined a place like
this existed."
       In a bygone era, places like this didn't exist.  Or if they did, they
were makeshift and almost mythical - spoken of only in hushed tones, if
mentioned at all.  But with the steady increase of openly gay baby boomers
stampeding for housing, retirement communities catering to their needs are
suddenly trendy.  A dozen developers are peddling proposals for gay
retirement villages from Boston to Santa Fe, N.M.  All these firms want to
capture a slice of the market of an estimated 2 million gay people over age
65 - a population that's expected to double by 2030.
       Revved-up demand seems ensured for several reasons.  For openers,
many lesbians and gay men assume they would be ostracized at mainstream
retirement facilities.  "There is a great fear of being forced back into the
closet," says Peter Lundberg, who is working on a proposal for gay-senior
housing in Southern California.  Also, since homosexuals often don't have
children for support as they age, retirement communities are especially
appealing.  And then there's the AIDS factor: as more people live longer
with the virus, they could further drive the need for these communities.
       Six years ago, however, when Gina Razete and Cathy Groene began
developing a community of RVs and prefabricated homes near Fort Myers, the
opportunity was not so obvious.  Back then, the twosome offered virtually
ironclad assurances that the 50-acre property, minutes from the beach, would
not be advertised as a women's - let alone gay - community.  And nosy
journalists were routinely turned away.
       The furtive environment was born mostly out of practical concerns.
"We have a lot of retired military women and schoolteachers who are afraid
of losing their pensions if people outside knew they were gay," Razete
explains.  Even in their 70s and 80s, some residents in the predominantly
lesbian community have never come out to their children and are afraid of
being disowned by their families.  (For these reasons, in deference to the
community's abiding desire for privacy, TIME agreed not to disclose the
community's name and exact location.)  Other, newer facilities operate more
openly.  The Palms of Manasota, in Palmetto, Fla., is a close-knit community
of about 35 gay and lesbian residents in 21 quaint, Mediterranean-style
homes surrounding a peacefully gurgling pond.  Thirty-four additional
condominium villas are planned for the 30-acre ungated property, which
includes seven acres of protected wetlands.
       Retirees Roger Robinson, 62, and Greer North, 61, began living in the
Palms part time in 2001 but a year later sold their home in Beaverton, Ore.,
making their relocation official.  The couple, who have been together for 40
years, bought their three-bedroom, two-bath home at the Palms for $156,000.
"If you said I'd end up in Florida, I'd say you were nuts," remarks North, a
former manager for a technology manufacturer.  "But the people here are real
treasures."
       The hallmark of both existing communities is the degree to which
residents look after one another.  "If anyone is sick, someone will bring
soup or provide a ride to the doctor or hospital," says Robinson, a retired
elementary school principal.  When North recently had cataract surgery, at
least six neighbors called to see how they could help.  At the Fort
Myers-area village, 90 miles away, native Chicagoans Jill Schwartz, 61, and
her partner of 29 years Annie O'Dowd, 74, were drawn by the promise of a
good support system as much as the sunshine.  "We were never activists,"
says Schwartz, a retired attorney.  "We just find it a comfortable place."
       Unfortunately, the communities aren't immune to the prejudices that
plague society at large.  At the Palms, located on a quiet suburban street
near a Baptist church, teenagers on a couple of random occasions have driven
by the entrance screaming homophobic epithets.  Another time, the decorative
concrete seahorses next to the pond were overturned at night.  "We have to
be careful not to label things automatically as homophobia.  The vandalism
could just have been mischievous kids," resident Ernie Settanni says.
       The good news: a few long-term-care centers are starting to
incorporate diversity training that includes discussion of sexual
orientation.  Rainbow Train, a Seattle-based nonprofit agency, has conducted
staff sensitivity training on gay issues at 12 local organizations providing
long-term care for the elderly.
       As for developers Razete and Groene, they are out to capitalize
further on the trend that they helped start.  In August 2000 the duo
purchased 165 acres in the mountains near Boone, N.C., for a proposed
retirement village of 94 homes to be called Carefree Cove.  Last summer they
started selling one-acre lots for about $40,000 each. So far, 20 of the 35
have sold.
       This time around, however, they have taken a different marketing
tack.  Gone is the secrecy that enshrouded their first project.  Carefree
Cove is billed - front and center - as a lesbian and gay community.  But its
promise of upscale rustic living might be too pricey for some.  Homes start
at $200,000.  Still, Razete is confident that she has got another hit on her
hands.  "The country is ready for this now," she says.  And so too is a
whole new generation of gay adults.

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