OREGON S CMWUEffBMmiei/TRANS NEWSMAGAZINE
APRIL 17 2009
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Portland Authors
Answer U/ho's Your
Mama?
Who's Your Mama?: The Unsung Voices of
Women and Mothers, a recently released an­
thology featuring four Portland residents, is
a multi-faceted exploration of the beliefs,
relationships and socioeconomic re­
alities that shape female
perspectives on mother­
hood (Ed. Yvonne Bynoe,
Trade Paper Original,
$15.95).
“We’ve heard way too
much from white, affluent,
married women,” said local
author Mary Foulk. “There
are not enough voices in­
volved in talking about be­
ing a parent, talking about
being a mother. The editor
was really intentional about
what she wanted.” Foulk’s
piece, “Which One is the Mother?,” deals
with her experience watching her wife carry
their child.
“I talked about some of my fears about
not being biologically connected, being
separate, worrying about intimacies of
genetic connections,” Foulk said. “A lot
of those fears were put aside the moment
[their son] was born. I just realized then
that we were a family.”
The anthology is groundbreaking be­
cause “motherhood is still regarded as some­
thing women ‘do’— maybe choose—but not
something we actively craft,” said Liz Prato,
another Portland writer. “And I don’t mean
craft in terms of creating schedules and
plans and futures for our kids, but creating
our own lives, and what being
a parent will mean to us.” Her
piece, “Is Life Without Chil­
dren Worth Living?,” answers
its titular question, and also
defines her family to include
cats, not children.
“Just recently someone
asked me, ‘Do you have a fam­
ily?,”’ continued Prato. “And
at first, I didn’t understand
her question. Aren’t we all
part of a family—whether
it’s the one we re born into,
or the one we create for
ourselves? And then I real-
ized she was asking if I have a husband
and kids. It made me bristle, like it’s not as
valuable to participate in those other kinds
of family.”
Foulk and Prato, along with the Took’s
other Portland-based contributors, Sonali
Sangeeta Balajee and Kelly Jeske, will read
their work at 4 p.m. April 25 at In Other
Words Books (8 NE Killingsworth St.,
'WA/illainette Financial
Ww
Group, LLC
503-232-6Q03) and at 7:30 p.m. April 30
at Annie Bloom’s Books, (7834 SW Capitol
Hwy., 503-246-0053).
—Adina Lepp
Symposium on Same-
Sex Marriage and the
First Amendment
On Sunday, April 19, the Clark County
and Columbia Chapters of the Americans
United for the Separation of Church and
State are sponsoring a symposium on mar­
riage equality, entitled “Civil Rites: Same-
Sex Marriage and the First Amendment.”
The symposium is free anj open to the
public, and will be held at Portland State
University. Co-sponsors include the PSU
Women’s Studies Department, Basic Rights
Oregon, Love Makes a Family and the Port­
land Japanese American Citizens League.
The symposium will feature a panel
discussion moderated by Steven K. Green,
director of the Center for the Study of
Religion, Law, and Democracy at the Wil­
lamette University School of Law (Salem).
Panel members include Tamara Metz, pro­
fessor of political science at Reed College;
Beth A. Allen, attorney-at-law with Allen2,
LLC; Reverend Tara Wilkins, executive
director of Community of Welcoming
(t) Join Hearts
'i.
THINK YOU CAN'T
AFFORD TO BUY?
Congregations; and Rabbi Daniel Isaak of
Congregation Neveh Shalom.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Con­
stitution provides the legal basis for reli­
gious organizations to practice their beliefs
without interference from the government.
But what happens when a same-sex couple
attempts to form a marriage based on the
Constitution’s guarantee of equal protec­
tion under the law? To further complicate
the issue, there is also the Constitution’s
Establishment Clause, which requires the
separation of church and state.
Recently, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled
in support of same-sex marriage by strik­
ing down a state law that banned it, and
the Vermont legislature overrode a veto in
order to preserve marriage equality. The
two states join Massachusetts and Con­
necticut in allowing same-sex marriage. In
Oregon, domestic partnerships are legally
recognized, but same-sex marriages are
prohibited by the state’s Constitution.
Specifically, Article XV, section 5a
states, “It is the policy of Oregon, and its
political subdivisions, that only a marriage
between one man and one woman shall be
valid or legally recognized as a marriage.”
(Basic Rights Oregon’s Executive Direc­
tor Jeana Frazzini discusses the statewide
ramifications of these national develop­
ments in a story on pg. 5.)
continued on page 8
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