New Hampshire has become the second state within the past week that has updated its parentage laws to better protect all children and families, including those formed through assisted reproduction.
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?
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.
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.
The U.S. Supreme Court surprised many today with a landmark 6-3 ruling, written by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, stating that people cannot be fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Yet last Friday, the Trump administration finalized a rule that says health care anti-discrimination protections don’t cover discrimination based on LGBTQ identities.
The Trump Administration last week filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court stating that taxpayer-funded child welfare agencies should be allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others if serving them conflicts with the agency’s religious beliefs. The administration’s position should come as a surprise to exactly no one.
