LGBT Parenting Roundup

This week’s roundup is chock-full of superheroes and moms who rock (literally).

• Jean Ann Esselink at The New Civil Rights Movement writes of April Deboer and her partner Jayne Rowse who “were actually superheroes disguised as suburban Michigan nurses who happened to be lesbians.” They already had two children when the case worker of a critically ill child in the foster care system asked them to take the boy home to “comfort him while he died.” Under their care, he survived. The state of Michigan, however, will only let one of them adopt him—just as they will only let one of them adopt each of their two other children. They have therefore filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming its adoption law is discriminatory.
• Speaking of superheroes, Abbie Goldberg puts the smackdown on The Avengers for an insult to adopted children.
• The Maternally Yours podcast, in an episode on “Same Sex Parenting,” talks with moms Nadine Smith, president of Equality Florida, Maggie Davenport, assistant executive director at ALSO Youth, and other LGBT parents across Florida.
• The Los Angeles Daily News reports that the LA County Department of Children and Family Services is reaching out to the LGBT community to find homes for some of the 35,000 kids in its foster care system.
• Janet Walsh, deputy women’s rights director of Human Rights Watch, explains that the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leaves out same-sex couples, and how that inequality harms families, including children.
• Britain’s National Health Service will offer same-sex couples and women over 40 free in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment for the first time.
• Same-sex parents and their children in Australia are fighting back against a group of doctors who say children are better off when raised by opposite-sex parents.
• It’s past Mother’s Day, but it’s never too late for a post about lesbian moms who rock.