02/08/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Rachel Maddow wants you to know that she is not getting married. Maddow is currently living with her long term partner, artist Susan Mikula. Maddow and Mikula met when Maddow was a grad student. Maddow shoveled Mikula’s driveway…among other things.

Maddow said in an interview today:

“This spring, we will have been together for 11 years, and our relationship is serious and happy, mature, monogamous. We like having the right…but we’re making our own decision about whether we should exercise it.”

I don’t want to delve into the validity of Maddow’s relationship. However, statements such as these generally occur right before the couple in question breaks up. This applies to gay or straight relationships. Ladies, feel free to get your hopes up.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lez Ask The Femme: Time to Break-Up (lezgetreal.com)
• Kirsten Gillibrand on Rachel Maddow (lezgetreal.com)

Every day LGBT people face inequalities that just don’t make sense, from small acts of discrimination to ones with tragic consequences. The hard reality is that you find out what rights you have when you need them the most. For many of us, that means that we have to ask ourselves, am I protected? Unfortunately, we have a long ways to go, and each and every one of us must do our part. Visit http://amiprotected.org.

Charlene Strong lost her partner Kate Fleming after a tragic flooding incident in Seattle in late 2006, and was nearly barred from seeing Fleming in her last moments of life. Strongs heart-wrenching testimony about the hospital ordeal helped prompt Washington State to pass domestic partnership protections for same-sex couples. The award-winning feature documentary “for my wife” chronicles Strongs journey through tragedy to activism.

Equal Rights Washington Education Fund is responsible for this ad. http://amiprotected.org

Since we were married last year, my wife and I received a letter in the mail asking us to participate in a study on ‘intimate relationships’.

The letter said:

Your marriage was a momentous event. There is usually a period of adjustment after a marriage, unless you have been together a long time. How satisfied are you with your marital relationship now?

You have an opportunity to evaluate your relationship by thinking about your answers to a questionnaire on the internet. If you do not have access to the Internet at home or work, you should be able to do so free at a public library or for a small fee at an internet cafe.

The questionnaire is entirely enonymous and contains no advertising. It is for adults of all ages, genders, and cultural backgrounds, in a marriage, other committed relationships or a casual relationship. It has been approved by the Human Subjects Protection Committee at Whittier College.

The study is being conducted by Professor of Psychology Charles T Hill, PhD through the Whittier College website at http://web.whittier.edu/chill/ir.

The call for couples concluded by saying:

This is especially important now at a time when the definition of marriage is being debated.

The study will also reportedly allow comparisons with a previous study on intimate relationships done in 1972 called the Boston Couples Study.

Same-sex couples are encouraged to participate, although the study is open to anyone over the age of 18.

Julie Phineas is a work at home mom of 2 who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her by visiting her page on MySpace.

This is something my wife and I joked about.

If they pass Prop. 8 we have a chance to run! From what you say? From being married! LOL Since we got married it’s been good, but those who are married know that once you say ‘I do’ your spouse starts saying ‘I don’t’. You start bickering over which family you will visit for the holidays, why didn’t you take the trash out, stuff like that. So, here it is. Prop. 8 passed by a slim margin and now we are wondering… what do we do now?? Jerry Brown says our marriage is still valid. Does that mean it’s still recognized by others in our state? What about other states? The answers will come but in the meantime what do you think… should I run while I have the chance?? LOL (**you know I’m j/k I LOVE my wife/partner/girlfriend or whatever she is now!) But seriously… should I run? HaHa
Julie Phineas is a work at home mom of 2 who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her by visiting her page on MySpace.

Houseworks
Originally uploaded by desi.italy

A housewife is a woman who is the primary caregiver of the home, many times foregoing a paid job to manage her household, which may or may not include raising children.

I myself am a lesbian housewife. A housewife in 2008 may work out of the home, work from inside the home, or not work at all. The main component of her duties as manager of all that relates to the home does not diminish because of her career, or the career of her spouse. The main duties of a housewife can include meal preparation, household cleaning, laundry duties, and managing any children. Many women take pride in taking care of their home and family, but I believe that in this day and age the existence of what is referred to as a ‘desperate housewife’ is becoming more widespread amongst straight and lesbian women alike, and I call this Desperate Housewife Syndrome.

The term ‘desperate housewife’ has been made popular by the TV show Desperate Housewives, but I want to bring attention to the fact that becoming a desperate housewife is a silent epidemic.

We all know that women in general can be a bit EMO to begin with, but there is a lot that contributes to the unique emotions that a housewife experiences as compared to a single woman, or woman who shares homemaking with her spouse. To begin with there is the element of isolation that comes with being committed to your home more so than your social life or career. If you have children, you might find yourself with less adult interaction and more involvement in child centered activities than before. Plus, household duties such as laundry, meals and cleaning are never ending jobs. The current culture of housewives everywhere is pretty competitive and many women are reluctant to admit any negative feelings they might have about being a housewife for fear of being judged negatively by other houswives, gay or straight.

Many housewives have a fantasy in their heads of a perfectly clean home with everything put in its place, well mannered children, unlimited finances and the physical energy to create home cooked meals and unforgetable family memories; maybe even a brilliant career on top of it all.

The ‘Super Woman Syndrome’ and the idea that women can ‘have it all’ fuel this epidemic by giving women unrealistic expectations of themselves. More and more housewives are prescribing to anti-depressants, and it’s easy to understand. Managing a home (and possibly the children too) is an extremely underappreciated and low paying position. If you don’t work out of the home, the change of scenery and lack of social interaction can get to be a bit boring too.

What is interesting to note about depression is that it stems from anger at the self, and desperation is a form of hopelessness.

Could it be that Desperate Housewife Syndrome stems from anger at not being able to be a ‘Super Woman’? Isn’t being a ‘Super Woman’ a situation that seems hopeless?

I’ve been down the road of trying to be a ‘Super Woman’ and have found myself feeling pretty depressed about life. There was a point when both of my children were in diapers, I had just moved into a new home, and was getting my home business off the ground at the same time. My children are my main priority, and caring for them is a full time job in itself. I was extremely overwhelmed and the first thing to suffer was my household duties. I noticed that I had a problem when I was planning how to re-arrange the furniture in our bedroom so that any daily messes were not visible from the living room. It really hit home when I began putting our laundry from the dryer onto the couch, and it wouldn’t make its way to the drawers so that the whole family began getting dressed in front of the couch each morning. (*yikes!) I didn’t have time to be ‘Super Woman’ with a perpetually sparkling clean home and I was feeling pretty down about it.

Of course, talking to other women about it was out of the question, and I found myself in a situation where I didn’t want to have anybody coming over to the house unless it was perfectly clean.

FlyLady.net describes this as living in CHAOS – Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. I totally resonated with this and delved into learning more about FLY Lady. FLY stands for Finally Loving Yourself. Once I took a look at FLY Lady and realized that I was living in CHAOS, I was able to open my eyes to the fact that I was not alone in the way that I felt. I took steps to figure out how to overcome Desperate Houswife Syndrome and come to a place where I am content with my situation. Now I feel hopeful about the future and have moved into becoming a Happy Housewife like the one in the picture below.

My happy housewife
Originally uploaded by Enrico Matteucci

Some of the ideas from FLY lady that helped me on my journey to becoming a Happy Housewife were:

-To ‘shine your sink’ every night before going to bed as a gift to yourself. A clean kitchen sink is a good gift for a Housewife – give it to yourself each night!

-Dress down to your shoes. Every morning when you wake up, get dressed with your full hair makeup and shoes on so that you are prepared for whatever comes your way that day.

-30 Minute Missions. Take 30 minutes to hit the hot spots around your house and put things away where they belong.

For more ideas by FLY Lady you can visit the homepage here or check out the following links for FLYing ideas that are best for your situation:

- Work Outside the Home Flybabies
- FLYing while Pregnant
- FLYing with a Baby
- FLYing with Pre-schoolers
- FLYing with School Age Children
- FLYing with Teenagers
- FLYing with Homeschoolers
- FLYing with Big Families
- FLYing as a Single parent

Other ideas that helped me to become a Happy Housewife:

-Daily Exercise. Even if its just 10 minutes of dancing around the living room, getting my body moving really contributes to an overall feeling of well being. Plus maintaining my weight boosts my confidence!

-A Regular Beauty Regimen. Make it a point to calendar time to maintain your appearance whether it’s putting on moisturizer, tweezing your brows, giving yourself a facial, conditioning your hair, etc. Take some time regularly to pamper yourself a bit.

-Adopt an Attitude of Gratitude. Learn to love your responsibilities by being grateful for them. Be grateful you are someone who has dishes to wash and clothes to fold!

-Maintain Open Communication With Your Spouse. Don’t be afraid to verbalize your needs and let your spouse know what you are going through. They can’t read our minds and dropping hints about what we need, beating around the bush about changes we would like to see, or holding in resentments isn’t going to help you become a Happy Housewife in any way. Communication can bring understanding and sometimes that’s all you need after a long day.

-If You Have Children, Create a Routine. This is good for them and good for you too. Developing a routine can provide a sense of security as mentioned in the article The Importance of Routines. The most important routines to establish are routines for mealtimes and bedtime.

-Find Social Outlets. Get active and get out of the house! Attend social events and participate in activities that allow you to make social connections with like minded people.

-Don’t Try to ‘Do It All’. Learn how to ask for help, delegate chores, and get other members of the household to work together on big tasks.

-Learn to Roll With the Punches. Mentally prepare yourself for life’s daily challenges and imagine yourself ‘going with the flow’.

If you find yourself dealing with Desperate Housewife Syndrome and incorporate these ideas into your life, you should notice a change in your perspective and general sense of well being.

Life will continue to change and present challenges, but you will notice your attitude change for the positive. The elimination of Desperate Housewife Syndrome is a beautiful thing! I truly feel this is an unspoken epidemic and simply reaching out can make a big difference, so don’t be shy to discuss what you are going through with other housewives.

Desperate Housewife Syndrome doesn’t have to rule your life – you can be a Happy Housewife!

I hope that you enjoyed this post, and that I have been a help to any housewives out there who need it, lesbian or not. Take care and thank you for reading!

Julie Phineas is a work at home mom of 2 who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her by visiting her page on MySpace.

Marching for equality
Photo by bobster1985

What is the difference between domestic partnership and marriage?

According to the General Accounting Office 1,049 federal differences. These are just a couple:

*the right to sponsor a partner for immigration purposes
*the right to family-related Social Security benefits
*the right to federal income and estate tax breaks, about 59 of them
*the right to purchase continued health coverage for a partner after the loss of a job

We all heard the stories of same sex couples going through horrific ordeals after the 9/11 attacks.

Some didn’t only lose the love of their life, they lost that supporting income and they did not qualify for federal help. Another example of a benefit can be found in the case of Rosie O’Donnell. On February 27, 2004, Rosie O’Donnell traveled to San Francisco to wed her partner, Kelli Carpenter. Appearing on Good Morning America, she explained that previously, during a court battle with the publisher of Rosie magazine, O’Donnell’s attorneys requested that communications between her and her partner be excluded from testimony. Although communications between a husband and wife routinely receive this “spousal privilege,” the court rejected her request. “As a result,” O’Donnell explained, “everything that I said to Kelli, every letter that I wrote her, every e-mail, every correspondence and conversation was entered into the record. After the trial, I am now and will forever be a total proponent of gay marriage.”

According to the ACLU website:

Under current federal law, the federal government does not recognize marriages of same-sex couples. This means that married same-sex couples currently do not have any of the rights, benefits, or protections that federal law gives to married heterosexual couples, such as the ability to file joint federal income taxes or receive federal spousal benefits through social security or other federal programs.

This is why it is important to VOTE NO on proposition 8.

It is the first step in fighting for the same rights, about 1,049, that are given to heterosexual married couples. People sit there and say that we are whining and that we are crying, well your damn right we are. If there wasn’t such a massive difference then we wouldn’t care, but there is and it isn’t right to not allow us the same rights. Either you make it so NO ONE gets those federal rights or you make it so that it is equal across the board no matter if it is same sex or not. We work, and we pay our taxes too, then by that same token we deserve the same benefits given to others. Who we love is our business and if you hate it because your God tells you to, then fine, let us be tax exempt like you. That is right. Churches are tax exempt and so should we. See, you are basing your life on a personal belief. We have a personal belief that we are this way and this is who we love. Make it EQUAL. Separate yourself from politics or be involved but get rid of your tax exempt status, or allow us to be tax exempt too.

To all others, this is about EQUALITY and nothing else.

Domestic Partnership is nice, but it is NOT the same thing as marriage. As Tom Campbell, a Republican and former five-term U.S. Congressman stated, “Government has no business making distinctions between people based on their personal lives.”

p.Johanna is a single lesbian who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her and view her photos by visiting her page on MySpace.

I am a woman who wants to marry a woman. Mind you I don’t have any woman in mind yet. But I’m hopeful I will find the one and that when I do, same-sex marriage will be legal in this whole country as well as the whole world. Damn, I may be dead by the time same-sex marriage is legal the world over. The sooner the world gets with it, the better for me and for all of us.

Same-sex marriage is currently legal in the states of California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. It is also legal in the countries of the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, and in Norway (effective January 1, 2009).

Three states have anti-same-sex marriage initiatives on their ballots in next Tuesday’s elections. Vote NO on Proposition 8 in California, NO on Proposition 2 in Florida, and NO on Proposition 102 in Arizona, if you live in any of those battleground states.

I live in the state of Iowa. Same-sex marriage was legal in Iowa for about a day in August of 2007. Two Ames men, Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan, managed to get married during that brief window of opportunity. They are Iowa’s first and so far only same-sex couple to marry.

One Iowa, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, is dedicated to supporting full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals living in Iowa through grassroots education and advocacy.

I had the pleasure of attending a lesbian wedding in Iowa in the 1990s. Although not legally recognized, the wedding took place at the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines. The wedding reception was held in the church hall. It was a joyous occasion. A few months before the wedding, I suggested to the happy couple that they register for wedding gifts. The two ladies hadn’t even thought of that. They delightedly did so. A lesbian friend and I bought them a wedding present from their gift registry at Target.

I want no less than equal rights for me and my gay compatriots. I want to find the right woman and marry her if she’ll have me. I want my family and friends to celebrate with me my wedding day and my lifelong marriage. I’m confident a legal marriage will make me healthier, wealthier, wiser, and happier. Get me to the courthouse on time!

Jules Joyce is the Fighter Writer, a playwright and blogger who lives in Iowa. You can find her speaking more of her mind on her blog The Fighter Writer.

Hello I’m Paula and I am a recovering U-Haul Lesbian.

There is an old joke that goes…. What does a lesbian bring on a second date?

In lesbian pop culture, the term U-Haul Lesbians refers to relationships that progress especially swiftly, as in example, moving in together after only a short period of time and gets its name from the move it yourself trucks and trailers often rented to make these moves. These relationships have become almost cliché in the lesbian community.

It has been surmised by some in both the lesbian community and the mental health field, that lesbians use this sort of behavior as an escape from the emotional upheavals involved with dating and it is thought to stem from a stunted development of intimate relationships during the teenage years, since many lesbians are normally in the closet at this time.

I have also had innumerable lesbians friends tell me that in the past they have felt a very real aversion to dating and get drawn into these types of relationship because of the instant gratification and intimacy they create. I have to admit, I’ve been in a quite a few of these types of relationships myself back in the day. Most of us have at least once I think.

So what’s the big deal, you ask?

While the concept of dating can seem overwhelming or scary to many of us, the big deal is that U-Haul relationships don’t ever seem to last and are not very satisfying in the long term. Worst yet, the process of ending one can be appallingly painful both emotionally and financially.

I lived in a place (the Outer Banks of North Carolina) where we had a pitifully small lesbian population. There were probably not 300 lesbians living in an area that covered over 800 square miles, making the lesbian dating pool there pretty small.

Also I am deaf and I don’t care what the L word says, being a deaf lesbian is not all glamour and art shows. So it really did not help matters at all, that not only was I a lesbian in a very small lesbian dating pool, additionally, not many in that perspective dating pool had a clue what I was saying most of the time. When I found a potential lover who could get around my deafness and my difficulty with speech, I grabbed right on to her, moved her into my house and off to the races we went.

Now I was also a very dedicated surfer girl and surfer girls are not really known for a very, shall we say, mature outlook on many aspects of life. Free beer and all night parties’ called to me often and if the surf was up 300 miles down the coast; I’d load up my truck and off I’d go, leaving a note on the kitchen table simply saying “Gone Surfin”. It would be safe for anyone to assume, this is not an attitude that promotes strong long-term relationships.

It also did not help that I tended to gravitate towards other surfer girls or even worse yet, tourist girls who wanted to be surfer girls, all with similar attitudes and outlooks on life as mine, as lovers. Most of the time our ride was intense but short and not very much fun in the end.

When we’d finally break up, our belongings would be all intertwined, as were our finances. So when it was over, I’d find myself losing about half my stuff, canceling my bank accounts, opening new ones, and was generally in a mess both emotionally and financially long after the relationship.

And I can’t even begin to tell you how many really good surfboards I lost this way.

Things did not get any better for me till I finally moved off the island for a while to advance my education, relocating to Wilmington, North Carolina.

Once arriving there, I was pleased to find Wilmington had a very vibrant lesbian population, many of whom, happily for me, were also quite adept in the use of sign language, because as my luck would have it, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington had a well established and popular deaf communication program it offered that seemed to attract a lot of lesbians.

So it was in this atmosphere I started to learn how to take things bit slower and to get to know my dates, and see if we were compatible for more then just sex.

But the real change for me came as I started find myself attracted to a more mature and settled type of woman while I was living in Wilmington, probably because I was starting to have a more mature and settled attitude myself. I learned that I could date someone and even have a sexual relationship with her but that I did not have to move her into my house.

Yes dating could still be a stressful endeavor, full of the insecurities and questions that tend to come with any dating scene and many of the girls I dated did not get my not wanting to “U-Haul” with them and took it as a lack of a willingness to commit to a relationship with them. But by slowing it down on the U-Hauling, I had time to date around till I finally found someone I could, as a final point, get to know as someone I could call my soul mate for life, and I still had all my stuff when a dating relationship did not work out.

I never lost another favorite surfboard again.

Also, today, I am celebrating the 11th anniversary of my partner and soul mate Debbie and I being together. (Happy Anniversary Baby Girl)

So ladies stop being a lesbian clichés, slow it down, take your time, lesbian dating need be neither a stress nor a reason to put yourself in a financial or emotional hole. Just relax and enjoy your dating time.

Leave your U Haul at home and take it one day at a time.

Paula Brooks lives in the Outer Banks of North Carolina with her partner, their twin daughters and her hearing helper dog, where they own and operate a vacation home rental business. You can visit her Blogger profile here.