The term "family values" has been bandied about so much by politicians that these words hardly have any meaning anymore. They have come to mean anything BUT "family" or "values" under this current Republican administration.

These are my family values:

I value our founder's values--to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

I value the separation of church and state--I don't want the state telling my church what we can do, and I don't want my church telling our state what we must do. I don't want someone's "brand" of religion telling us what we must teach in our schools. We should teach faith issues in church, and teach science in public schools.

I value my faith, which leads me to "do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly" with my God. My faith guides me in my decisions, but I do not believe that I have the right to force my particular religious beliefs on anyone who believes differently.

I value all children and all families; the state should not decide who makes a family when two consenting adults are involved. Up until about the 1960's, in Texas, by law, people of different "races" could not marry. Thankfully, those days are gone.

I value all people living and working in our state, and I believe they should have the opportunity to earn a living wage.

I value our teachers, and I believe they should be paid so that their compensation is, at a minimum, in line with that of other states. They are teaching our most valuable treasures, our children, how can we not value them?

I value the futures of all Texans-so I believe we need to properly fund our schools, public elementary and secondary schools, as well as public colleges and universities.

I value the accessibility of health care for all Texans.

I value integrity and honor.

I believe that "as you do to the least of these, you do to Me," and that we have a responsibility as a moral state to help provide for those who are in need, not through long-term handouts, but through programs that teach. "Give him a fish, feed him for a day, teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime."

Here's an article I wrote about valuing all families:

The evening of April 11, 2002, my husband and I returned from Guatemala with our daughter, whom we adopted from there. She was 8 mo. old at the time, now, at 4 ½ yr old, she continues to be the light of our lives. This April 11, we'll celebrate our 4th Family Day with dinner out at Lettie's favorite restaurant, Nutty Brown Café.  Sadly, there are those on the radical right ("Repub-libans") who want to restrict adoption to fit their narrow views of the world.

As a member of the adoptive community, I'm on 4 different adoption list-serves + a Google alert on international adoption. In the 5+ years I've been on these lists, not once has a negative story come across about adoption by a same gendered couple or a GLBT single parent, yet, the Repub-libans continue to put out their warped logic about the "harm" to children who are adopted by same gendered couples or single GLBT people. This past March, a legislator from Tennessee was quoted as say that "gay couples adopt to molest children", and this was carried in print and on TV. This is so outrageous- there is, to my knowledge, absolutely no evidence of this- there are reports that radical right churches have put out, but no peer reviewed research has shown this to be true.

As a member of so many adoption related list serves, over the past few months I've read very sad stories about the Russian children who were murdered by their adoptive parents, the Guatemalan boy who murdered his adoptive mom, and, saddest of all, the young Russian girl who was sexually molested by her adoptive father (divorced) from the time she was brought to the US at the age of 5 until she was finally found (he also exploited her with pornographic photos on the 'net) at the age of 10. Each of these cases was with straight parents. Anytime a negative story about adoption from anywhere comes out, I can assure you it goes through the adoption community like wildfire. Never have I seen a single article about a child being harmed in any way by a GLBorT parent. There have been plenty of people who have voiced that opinion on the lists, but no one has ever been able to come up with any type of articles other than conjuncture from radical right "religious" publications.

Indeed, the American Psychological Association has a report showing that children raised by gay or lesbian parents are normal kids.(See http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html ) In all the studies I've read and about which I've read, the only discernable difference was that children raised in gay or lesbian families was that the children tend to be more tolerant. Heaven save us from tolerant children!

I have several friends who are in committed same gendered relationships that are raising children- some are biological and some are adopted. If you didn't notice that there was an extra mom or dad around, you'd not notice any difference between how they act with their children and how I act with out daughter. They are simply people who wanted to parent.

For the radical right to try to enforce their view of religion on the entire state (if not the entire country) is wrong on so many levels, but especially when you're talking about leaving children without parents. I was at one meeting where a young woman said she'd been in a very large number of foster homes until she was adopted by a lesbian couple. She said "they were the only ones who wanted me" and then went on to talk about what a change that made in her life to have two parents who loved and supported her.

When I testified at the HJR 6 hearings, we heard testimonies from many people- most of the straight- they were parents, grandparents, siblings, aunt and uncles of GLBT people and some were just friends. They talked about their hopes and dreams for these people they loved, but the Republicans on panel just sat there, stone-faced, and then voted against these love. Our daughter is only 4 ½, only God knows her sexuality at this point. She loves her "princess dolls", but she also loves her trucks- it is common to see Snow White in the back of a play dump truck.:) I can only hope, pray, and work for a better future for her and all children. I hope that, should it turn out that she is not straight, that we'll have a more accepting and loving world by the time she knows who she is. I hope we all want that for our children.

So, April 11, as we celebrate our Family Day, I'll keep in mind that we need to keep the possibility of family available and legal for all families- and that we work to get legal rights for all families- all children deserve the legal protections that our daughter gets just because Mark and I are married. Children don't pick their parents- they're born or adopted into them.