NEWSBYDANA RUDOLPH

A few weeks ago, clothing store J. Crew ran an ad showing company president and creative director Jenna Lyons painting her son Beckett's toenails. The tagline read: "Saturday with Jenna: Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon."

The far-right promptly had conniptions. Dr. Keith Ablow of Fox News worried about  "homogenizing males and females" and "psychological sterilization."

But one of the best responses to the far-right has been from the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), a nonprofit that "takes an outside-of-the-box approach to civic engagement by using parallels from the Harry Potter books to educate and mobilize young people across the world toward issues of literacy, equality, and human rights." HPA says the fact that almost every major media outlet ran a story about the ad was "an act of bullying":

Early in January, the U.S. State Department announced it would be changing the passport application form to say “Mother or Parent 1″ and “Father or Parent 2,”  an attempt to be more inclusive of all family structures.

Now, Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) has called the change "a bureaucratic attempt to redefine traditional parent roles." He has filed a bill that would require all federal agencies, contractors, and government-sponsored enterprises to "use the words 'mother' and 'father' when describing parents, and not the words 'parent 1' or 'parent 2' (or other similar words), in all official documents."

Several hundred thousand children are being raised by same-sex parents across the country, over 6,500 of them in Rep. Forbes' state of Virginia, according to the Williams Institute of UCLA. How exactly does Rep. Forbes expect them to complete government forms?

Sure, one can cross out and write in whatever applies to one's own family -- but many people may hesitate to do so on official forms like a passport application. And for children watching their parents complete the forms, such crossing out and amending reinforces the message that their families are marginalized.

That was quick. Just yesterday, I wrote about two lesbian students in Minnesota, who were selected as part of the "Royalty Court" by fellow students as part of the annual Snow Days pep fest, then told by the school that they could not walk together in the traditional procession as a couple, as romantic opposite-sex couples have been allowed to do. In order to stop them, the school first cancelled the procession entirely, and then said students would walk in one at a time.

Now, thanks to a federal lawsuit filed by the  Southern Poverty Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Faegre & Benson, LLP, the parties have reached an out-of-court agreement. Each member of the Royalty Court will select "a meaningful person in their life" to escort him or her in the coronation procession. The students, Desiree ("Dez") Shelton and Sarah Lindstrom, will thus be able to walk in the procession together as they desire.

Over 600 Change.org readers also signed our petition to the school and school district. Thank you for taking quick action against discrimination.

Remember high school dances? The lucky few students who were named to the "royal court" by their peers as a sign of popularity or respect?

Two lesbian students in Minnesota, Desiree ("Dez") Shelton and Sarah Lindstrom, were chosen by fellow students in Champlin Park High School to be part of the court for the annual Snow Days winter event, which begins with a pep fest and procession this Monday, January 31, and ends with a formal dance next Saturday. But the school, which is part of the Anoka-Hennepin School District that has been heavily criticized for not doing enough to curb anti-LGBT bullying, changed its school policy to prevent the two from taking part in the procession as the couple they are.

In past years, the royal court entered the pep fest in procession, walking in pairs, and members of the court could choose their partners. Typically, couples who were girlfriend and boyfriend entered together.

According to a letter from the  Southern Poverty Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Faegre & Benson, LLP, to the school and the district yesterday, though, "CPHS told Desiree and Sarah they could not walk together, solely because both girls are of the same sex. When Desiree and Sarah persisted in their request, CPHS responded by informing them on Thursday, January 27, 2011, that it would cancel the traditional processional part of the assembly entirely and the Pep Fest and Coronation would begin with the student royalty already seated."

When you think of same-sex families, what cities spring to mind? San Francisco? New York? Provincetown?

It turns out that same-sex couples in Southern states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than those on the West Coast, in New York and in New England. In fact, San Antonio, Texas, leads the nation in the percentage of same-sex couples raising kids, at 34 percent. Jacksonville, Florida, is next, at 32 percent.

The New York Times reported on this January 19, citing research by Gary Gates of the Williams Institute at UCLA, well known for its studies of LGBT demographics and economics. Gates and others have been analyzing the new data from Census 2010, and found some interesting trends. For example, Black or Latino same-sex couples are twice as likely as white ones to be raising children, and more likely to be struggling economically.

That contradicts almost every image of same-sex parents we see in the mainstream (and even much LGBT) media. They are almost always white and middle- to upper-class. Consider: Both Showtime's The L Word and ABC's Modern Family ran episodes in which a couple of same-sex parents try to get their child into an exclusive preschool. And new dads Elton John and David Furnish aren't exactly hurting for money. Although it may indeed help the cause of acceptance to see their family in the media, they are not representative of the whole.

What would you do with $193 million dollars? That's what the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) ban on openly gay servicemembers cost our country between 2004 and 2009, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO says that during that time period, 3,664 servicemembers were separated under DADT. Of those, 1,442 "held critical occupations, such as infantryman and security forces," and another 23 "held skills in an important foreign language, such as Arabic or Spanish." Seven separated servicemembers fell into both categories. All told, that's about 40 percent of all DADT discharges who were in critical roles.

It cost the government -- read, you and I, as taxpayers -- $185.6 million to recruit and train replacements and $7.7 million in administrative costs.

You might stop in for the latest NY Times bestseller or a half-caff, no foam, venti latte at the café. But go to a Barnes & Noble this week, though, and you'll also find anti-bullying materials in preparation for No Name-Calling Week (Jan. 24-28), an annual event sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

The materials for teachers and educators include "book recommendations, tip sheets for organizing No Name-Calling Week events, lesson plans for elementary and middle school students, classroom posters and buttons." Some GLSEN chapters are also participating in in-store panel discussions.

And over on the B&N Web site you can view videos from bestselling children's, young adult, and adult authors — gay and straight — about their experiences with bullying. I particularly recommend the one by James Howe, whose 2001 middle-grade book The Misfits inspired No-Name Calling Week. Howe's "Pinky and Rex" early-reader series also tackles bullying in the volume Pinky and Rex and the Bully.

Last week, I wrote about Hudson Taylor, the former collegiate wrestling star (and now coach) who has become an outspoken ally and advocate for LGBT rights. Now, via gay sports site Outsports, comes news of three high school athletes who have launched Walk the Road, a blog for young LGBTQ athletes and other LGBTQ youth. Their goal is "to change the way teenage gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning athletes are viewed in the sports world" and "to help others out in the world who also have had trouble accepting, questioning, or becoming comfortable with their sexuality because of sports or other activities that they feel force them to stay hidden from the world."

No small task, that. The most striking thing about the blog, however, Outsports notes, is that the young men do not keep themselves anonymous. They are runner Brad Usselman, 16, and soccer players Ben Newcomer, 16, and Robert, 17. Each has photos of himself on the site. (Robert keeps his last name private because he lives in a conservative area.)

The world of out athletes is so small that it should come as no surprise that Hudson Taylor has become a friend of theirs, and out professional rugby player Gareth Thomas has recorded a video to them. (See Mike Jones' earlier piece here at Change.org for more on Thomas.) Theirs is an inspiring story and a challenging mission. I urge you to go read Outsports' coverage and to check out Walk the Road itself.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) today signed the "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights," which will provide New Jersey students with the strongest anti-bullying protections in the country. Many of you signed the petition here at Change.org urging Gov. Christie to sign the bill after the state legislature passed it in November -- so this victory is yours as well.

Unlike many other state and local anti-bullying laws, this one mandates specific anti-bullying procedures for schools across the state. It also includes specific protections for bullying based upon sexual orientation and gender identity, among other factors. Such enumeration has been shown to help reduce bullying based on those attributes.

The bill goes beyond just forbidding bullying, however. According to Garden State Equality, a leader in advocating for the bill, the new law will:

Hudson Taylor grew up in an Evangelical Christian family. He's straight. He graduated last year from the University of Maryland after being named a three-time Division I All-American in the hyper-masculine sport of wrestling.

You might think someone with that background might shy away from anything vaguely related to LGBT rights.

Taylor, however, competed last year wearing the logo of the Human Rights Campaign -- the largest LGBT advocacy organization in the country -- on his headgear, as Outsports reported. He is now a Division I college wrestling coach at Columbia University, and is the only college coach of a male sports team to contribute a video to the "It Gets Better" campaign of hope for LGBT youth, according to his Web site.