Love Makes a Family is a non-profit advocacy and assistance organization of families headed by LGBTQ people working for equal marriage and family rights in the United States. It was also the name of a former organization in Connecticut that disbanded in 2009 after achieving its aims.
Chapters Oregon Love Makes a Family, Inc. was founded in 1992 by Bonnie Tinker as an outgrowth of the making of a video of the same name on lesbian and gay Quaker families,"Board of Directors," Love Makes a Family, accessed December 19, 2009. and incorporated in 1993 in connection with opposition to Ballot Measure 9 on the part of "a racially diverse group of sexual minorities in Oregon and Southwest Washington.""About Love Makes A Family," Love Makes a Family, accessed December 19, 2009. It is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Its activities began in support of families, with support groups for parents and children and then a talk show with Tinker on a Christian right-wing radio station, KKEY, as well as a newsletter, a schools committee to speak with students and teachers, and increasing political activity."Remembering Bonnie Tinker," The Portland Alliance, June 2009, updated August 20, 2009. Based on Tinker's view that "meaningful social change doesn’t take place with 50 percent plus one, but rather when communities are transformed," the group also has booths at the Oregon State Fair for marriage equality and for non-violence, and continues Tinker's "Open Hearts and Minds" workshop since her death in an accident in July 2009.Raymond Rendleman, "2009 In Review: People: The Legacy of Bonnie Tinker" , Just Out, December 18, 2009, accessed December 20, 2009.
Connecticut Love Makes a Family of Connecticut or Love Makes a Family (Connecticut), Inc. was founded in 1999 as a coalition of organizations and individuals working for equal marriage rights for same-sex couples in Connecticut, using community education, grassroots organizing and legislative advocacy and lobbying. Founded by five statewide organizations to pass a co-parent adoption law, it succeeded in 2000 in that and also in defeating a "Defense of Marriage Act", and therefore instead of disbanding, incorporated and made the legalization of gay marriage its new goal."Who is LMF?" Love Makes a Family of Connecticut, June 5, 2004, at the Internet Archive. After that goal was achieved, in November 2009 it dissolved and donated its records to the Yale University Library."Love Makes a Family Donates Records to Yale: Connecticut’s Marriage Equality Story to be Preserved at Yale University," Yale University Library News, November 6, 2009, accessed December 19, 2009.Love Makes a Family closing banner, accessed December 19, 2009.Guide to the Love Makes a Family Records, accessed April 12, 2011.
See also LGBTQ parenting Same-sex marriage in Connecticut Same-sex marriage in Oregon
References
External links Love Makes a Family main page, archived at the Internet Archive Love Makes a Family (Connecticut) main page at the Internet Archive Love Makes a Family: Gay Parents in the 90's by Daniel Veltri, Remco Kobus & Marla Leech (1991) at Fanlight Productions Guide to the Love Makes a Family Records, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library Bonnie Tinker Papers, 1963-2009 held by Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College