Hooray Connecticut!

But dammit, why do these decisions keep having to be 4-3?

Del Martin, a gay rights pioneer who founded the Daughters of Bilitis and who recently married her partner of 55 years, Phyllis Lyon, died this morning.

Martin and Lyon were the first couple who San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom married during the city’s powerful act of civil disobedience in 2004. Just a few weeks ago, they were one of the first same-sex couples in California to finally be legally married.

Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon have been special, powerful faces of the same-sex marriage movement. May Del Martin rest in peace.

A parent complained to a public library about a children’s book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which is about a same-sex marriage. Here’s the librarian’s mind-blowingly awesome response. I don’t even know which part to quote. Here’s one excerpt:

You say that the book is inappropriate, and I infer that your reason is the topic itself: gay marriage. I think a lot of adults imagine that what defines a children’s book is the subject. But that’s not the case. Children’s books deal with anything and everything. There are children’s books about death (even suicide), adult alcoholism, family violence, and more. Even the most common fairy tales have their grim side: the father and stepmother of Hansel and Gretel, facing hunger and poverty, take the children into the woods, and abandon them to die! Little Red Riding Hood (in the original version, anyhow) was eaten by the wolf along with granny. There’s a fascinating book about this, by the bye, called “The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales,” by psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. His thesis is that both the purpose and power of children’s literature is to help young people begin to make sense of the world. There is a lot out there that is confusing, or faintly threatening, and even dangerous in the world. Stories help children name their fears, understand them, work out strategies for dealing with life. In Hansel and Gretel, children learn that cleverness and mutual support might help you to escape bad situations. In Little Red Riding Hood, they learn not to talk to big bad strangers. Of course, not all children’s books deal with “difficult issues,” maybe not even most of them. But it’s not unusual.

[via kottke]