A piece of news too good to wait for my Weekly Political Roundup: Colorado is now the 10th state in the country to allow second-parent adoptions. Both same- and opposite-sex unmarried couples may now adopt children together. Governor Bill Ritter signed the bill into law yesterday, despite pressure from conservative religious groups to veto it. […]
The Alabama House voted not to consider a bill that would add sexual orientation as a protected category to the state’s hate crimes law, despite urging from Patricia Todd, the state’s first out legislator. Opponents said existing legislation was sufficient. (Thanks to the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund Smartbrief.) The California Assembly passed legislation that
Marriage is not an activity that goes on within the border of a state. It is a status, a marital status, and therefore, somebody who becomes married and moves to Ohio will be seen in the eyes of many as being married. A. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, on his administration’s decision to recognize out-of-state
In one of the more interesting recent cases involving same-sex parents, a Pennsylvania appellate court ruled that a lesbian couple’s known sperm donor must pay child support to the bio mom. The man was active in the couple’s life, and the two children he helped conceive called him “Papa,” according to an article in the
Sometimes we sense the paradigm changing when we least expect it. My partner and I married in Massachusetts last fall. The first time I used my marital status to obtain something, though, was for a service based out of state, from a firm not known for LGBT inclusiveness. My partner and I get our insurance
It’s important to keep things in perspective. Much as we rightly criticize the U.S. for its less-than ideal policies towards parents and children, especially LGBT ones, we generally do all right here in the developed world. The humanitarian organization Save the Children today released its eighth annual Mothers’ Index, ranking the best and worst places
If you are still searching for the perfect Mother’s or Father’s Day gift for your partner or your own parents, you need look no further than Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America’s First Legal Same-Sex Marriages. It is a glossy, large-format work, but to call it a coffee-table book is to do it an
I was driving home from Boston the other day, reflecting that if I got hit by the semi in the next lane, at least I had a legal spouse who would be able to visit me in the hospital. I began then to ponder the advances in same-sex relationship recognition over the last several weeks.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (LLEHCPA), aka the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. The Senate must now vote on the measure, although the White House has already threatened a veto. Pam’s House Blend has fuller coverage and a breakdown of the vote. The U.S.
The U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (LLEHCPA), aka the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. This is a major step towards enacting the legislation that will include protections against hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, among other categories. It
