The Rhode Island Legislature this afternoon passed a bill that updates the state’s parentage laws to provide stronger, more equitable protections for families formed via assisted reproduction.
Yes, even in Massachusetts, which led the nation in marriage equality, married same-sex couples who use assisted reproduction still need to do lengthy, expensive, and intrusive second-parent adoptions in order for their children to have ironclad legal ties to both parents. A new bill would greatly simplify the process. Bills in New Hampshire and Rhode Island would also streamline the recognition of nonbiological parents—but they all need your support.
The only time I’ve ever been on birth control was when my spouse and I were trying to have a child. This just goes to show the variety of ways that birth control is used—and why the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing more employers to refuse to cover it is very much a queer issue.
I am thinking this July 4th week of a song from the musical “Hamilton,” which sees its television premiere on Friday. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr sing together to their children about their new country, “We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you./ If we lay a strong enough foundation/ We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you/ And you’ll blow us all away.” What is the world we want to leave to our children? What do we need to do to make it happen?
Today is the eighth annual Give OUT Day, a time to show the power of the LGBTQ community and to boost our collective impact in giving to LGBTQ nonprofits. Over the past several years, many nonprofits supporting LGBTQ individuals and families have struggled as charitable giving has fallen, both because of tax changes and the economic uncertainty brought by the pandemic. Even small donations can have a big effect today, though.
Black lives matter. Black LGBTQ lives matter. And we will never have a just world for LGBTQ families until we have racial justice.
Five years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that marriage should be open to all couples, no matter their gender—and one of the strongest arguments in the case was the best interests of children. Yet even five years after marriage equality, we are still struggling towards full equality for our families.
Indiana has just asked the U.S. Supreme Court to deny the right of married nonbiological mothers in same-sex couples to be put on their children’s birth certificates without second-parent adoptions. Should Indiana prevail, many children across the country could be denied the legal protection of both parents from the moment of birth. Pull up a chair; we’re going to explore this one in detail.
Wishing a very happy Father’s Day (or Fathers’ Day, if that’s how you roll) to all of the dads, papas, and anyone else celebrating their parenthood today! Here are a few stories of queer dads and dads of queer kids to delight and inspire!
A federal court has ordered the U.S. State Department to recognize the U.S. citizenship of a child born to two U.S. citizen dads abroad—something the department had refused to do for more than a year. But several similar cases involving same-sex parents and their children are still pending.
