- “Adoption Emerges As The Next Gay Rights Battle” asserts On Top magazine. The Chicago Tribune said pretty much the same thing back in December: “Next skirmish in culture war: Gay parenting,” but On Top brings us up to date with recent legislation and court cases.
- Drilling down into the cases mentioned by On Top, 365gay.com reports on the dozen families who are challenging the Arkansas law banning unmarried couples from becoming foster or adoptive parents. They have asked a judge to deny a state motion to have their lawsuit dismissed.
- The Tennessean reports on the proposed legislation in their state to enact a similar ban.
- LGBT students of color face greater victimization at school, according to a new study released by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
- The Point Foundation, in partnership with Jeffrey Fashion Cares, will offer a four-year scholarship for LGBT students in honor of Lawrence King, the gay teen murdered at school in February 2008. The scholarship will begin in the 2009/2010 academic year.
- Teen students at a school in east London performed “Romeo and Julian,” a variation on Shakespeare’s masterpiece, and got Parliament in a flap about it. Some MP’s clearly haven’t realized the many variations to which the play has been subject. (“You want to set it in New York? With American gangs?!”) Commons leader Harriet Harman also made the excellent point, “I seem to remember that in Shakespearean times, boys would play girls and girls would play boys and the whole point was trying work out which was which.” Not sure that was really the whole point (I kind of thought they were going for a suspension of disbelief), and I seem to recall boys playing girls, but not vice versa, but still, the original performances were pretty gender bendy.
- Starting in April, single mothers and lesbians who become pregnant after IVF in the U.K. will be able to name any adult as the child’s second parent on the birth certificate, as long as the person agrees.
- A lesbian couple in Scotland got the National Health Service to change its mind after it initially refused to provide them with IVF treatment.
- Upcoming changes to fertility laws in Australia mean the number of people a single donor can assist will change from 10 families to five women. This could mean a lesbian couple who each want to carry a child may not be able to use the same donor, reports the Advocate.
