Alternative to incarceration for low‐income non‐custodial parents

Increasingly, low‐income non‐custodial parents in the USA, primarily fathers, are at risk of incarceration for failure to make child support payments, clogging the prison system, preventing already at‐risk fathers from holding a job and removing them from relationships with their children. This paper examines an innovative programme in one south‐eastern state that provides an alternative to incarceration for non‐compliant parents, also allowing fathers an opportunity to find gainful employment; to learn valuable life skills; and to establish healthier relationships with their children. Data analysis from 3 years of programme implementation suggests that low‐income non‐custodial fathers enrolled in the Alternative to Incarceration programme have a much greater chance to fulfil their obligations, both as wage earners and as parents, when they are in a programme that provides life skills, helps them find employment and provides other supports to help them improve their life situation rather than incarcerating them for non‐payment of child support. Furthermore, this programme represents a substantial cost savings to the state, as hundreds of fathers have remained outside of the prison system. To date, this alternative to incarceration is a promising solution to a previously intractable problem.     

Gift Giving, Identity, and Transformation: The AIDS Memorial Quilt

Those who have originated the AIDS Memorial Quilt have often referred to it as a gift. In this essay, the author discusses theories related to gift giving to discuss the quilt and its constructed effects for those who experience it as a gift. In particular, Weiner's notion of inalienable possessions is highlighted to address how the quilt, as a gift that is kept inalienable from its original creators, maintains historical identity and immortality for its originators, many of whom are gay and bisexual men. Also, Hyde's notion of erotic gifts is presented to consider the quilt's ability to draw people together, create feeling-bonds among them, and affect their transformation.     

Beyond toleration: privacy, citizenship and sexual minorities in England and Wales

This paper examines two significant moments in sexual minority citizenship in England and Wales in relation to one of the Marshallian sets of rights, namely, civil or legal rights, focusing specifically on the Sex Offences legislation and policing practices. The first moment that will be examined here is the process whereby homosexual acts were decriminalized in the 1950s and 1960s; here special attention will be paid to the recommendations made by the Wolfenden Committee. The second moment is one we are currently experiencing, which is associated with the inclusive policing of sexual minority communities (especially lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities) under the provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and in the review of Sex Offences, especially in the consultation paper (Home Office 2000) and White Paper (Home Office 2002) associated with this review. Privacy and toleration dominate the first moment, at the same time it shall be demonstrated that privacy is also central to the British Sexual Citizenship literatures that have emerged in sociology in the post-Wolfenden context. However, as the title suggests, the second moment under examination points to the emergence of a rather more extensive sexual minority citizenship beyond the boundaries of 'homosexual privacy' (which British Sexual Citizenship Studies is not currently engaging with) and perhaps even beyond the boundaries of toleration through ever more 'inclusive' policing strategies and through the review of sex offences in which many discriminatory laws are being 'de-homosexualized'.     

LEGISLATING LOVE: The Effect of Child Support and Welfare Policies on Father–child Contact

Reducing non-marital childbearing and making nonresidential fathers take greater responsibility for their children were identified as goals of numerous policy changes since the 1980s. Child-support award rates for children born to unmarried parents have been quite low historically, leading lawmakers to focus on increasing both award and payment rates for this group. Nonmarital fathers are also much less likely to have contact with their children. Although evidence suggests that policy efforts increase child support awards and receipt, the link between child support policies, child support outcomes, and father-child contact has received less attention. This paper uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation on children born between 1985–1997 to investigate the relationship between child-support award and receipt and the amount of contact that fathers have with their non-residential children. Since it is likely that both of these behaviors are, in part, determined by unobservable characteristics of the father, we estimate an instrumental variables Tobit model. The model is identified by our assumption that child support policy variables can impact child support awards and payments, but father-child contact cannot be directly legislated. Our results suggest that there are unintended, but desirable effects of child support establishment and collection. Policies to collect child support not only increase financial resources to families, but through their impact on payments increase visitation and contact between these children and their fathers. The estimated impact of receiving child support on contact is more than 27 days per year.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Economic Association, Washington DC, January 2003 and the Annual Meetings of the Association of Public Policy and Management, November 2003. Support from NICHD Grant # HD30944 is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Suzann Eshleman for excellent computer programming and James Scully for providing us with data on genetic testing laws.     

Courage in the Telling: The Critical Rise and Fall of David Leavitt

Openly gay American fiction writer David Leavitt, who had received positive reviews for his previous novels and short story collections, was sued in 1993 over his novel While England Sleeps by English poet Stephen Spender, who claimed that Leavitt plagiarized an episode from his own 1951 memoir World Within World, and grafted pornographic fantasies onto his biography. The accusations created a homophobic backlash against Leavitt, whose career has yet to recover fully. The result is that Leavitt, who had once been viewed as the one gay writer to find a footing in the mainstream literary community, is now firmly positioned in the gay literary subgenre and his work categorized as such. This essay examines book reviews in order to illustrate the difficulties that a writer who deals with gay life frankly and unapologetically finds in being accepted by the mainstream literary establishment, no matter how normal or assimilationist he or others might perceive his work to be.     

The Development and Initial Validation of the COPLAG Scale: Measuring the Concerns of Parents of Lesbians and Gays

This article discusses the development and initial validation of a scale designed to assess parents’ concerns upon their learning about their children's gay or lesbian sexual orientations. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the scale's items resulted in a three-factor solution distinguishing among parental concerns about (1) their children's physical, psychological, and social well-being, (2) themselves as parents of gay or lesbian children, and (3) being rejected by loved ones.     

Aging with HIV: Historical and Intra-Community Differences in Experience of Aging with HIV

Gay men living with HIV/AIDS face a complex of health issues, including those associated with the aging process, long-term HIV infection (25 years or more), and side effects from Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART). If aging can increase marginalization, this is more likely for the aging HIV positive gay man, who is already marginalized for being queer and living with a stigmatizing disease. This article presents findings from a study of a long-running HIV support group. It locates the members, all gay men living with HIV, in a specific historical and political context to explore how feelings of loss and the struggle to sustain community affect long-term survivors and other older HIV+ gay men. We identify specific challenges presented by aging for men who contracted HIV early in the epidemic, contrasting them with those faced by men infected with the virus later in life. While both groups appear to struggle with a vision of what life could have been, had AIDS not forced loss and change, they also celebrate the community their shared plight has enabled.     

Parental Identity and Reflected‐Appraisals: Measurement and Gender Dynamics

A new theoretical model for parental identity, reflected‐appraisals, and behavior was proposed. Parental identity and behavior in married parents were then investigated as a function of partner's and perceived reflected‐appraisals, taking into account gender context effects. Sixty‐four married couples completed the Caregiving and Breadwinning Identity and Reflected‐Appraisal Inventory (CBIRAI), developed for this study to assess parental caregiving and breadwinning identity and reflected‐appraisals, as well as caregiving and breadwinning behavior measures. The model was confirmed for fathers and partially confirmed for mothers. Specifically, caregiving identity and behavior in fathers, and breadwinning identity in mothers were functions of perceived reflected‐appraisals. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

Coming Out as “We 3”

Abstract

Using an academic letter format, I use a blended-method-ological approach of personal ethnography and qualitative case study to assess the three-partner, gay male relationship and the role of parental support. In working to understand better the relational “We 3,” I first provide an account of my relational experience with two other men. I discuss the process of our coming together and then make a methodological turn to provide insights from both e-mail and face-to-face interviews with one set of parents who have supported their gay son in his three-partner relationship. As I, personally, have not had an in-depth conversation with my own parents regarding this issue, I use the parental case study to bridge an academic conversation regarding the negotiation of what might be termed a second or relational coming out process with parents. Finally, I discuss how insights from the first, personal coming out process provided the parents with tools to keep the conversation going and to support their son's relational coming out as a “We 3.”