A circuit judge today struck down Arkansas’ ban against unmarried couples adopting or foster-parenting children. The Arkansas law was approved by voters in November 2008, during the same election that in California saw the imposition of Prop 8, which halted the previous legalization of marriage for same-sex couples. The news must be particularly galling to
Passing along this information about a new study of lesbian and gay adoptive parents. I’m not involved in the study, but I know the Evan B. Donaldson folks have a good reputation. David Brodzinsky, one of the study leads, is Research & Project Director there. His research partner, Scott Ryan, is at Florida State—and we
Schools and Youth A federal judge ruled that high school senior Constance McMillen had a First Amendment right to attend her senior prom with the date of her choice and wearing the clothes of her choice, although he said he wouldn’t force the school to hold the prom they canceled after McMillen requested to attend
First, something not specific to parenting but that affects LGBT families with and without children: The Bilerico Project and many other blogs are holding a blogswarm today asking readers to contact Speaker Nancy Pelosi at 202-225-4965 and request that she move the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to a floor vote. Further details are here. One
Court Cases The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today to uphold a lower-court ruling and demand the Louisiana Registrar of Vital Statistics respect a New York adoption by a same-sex couple of a Louisiana-born baby boy. Lambda Legal represented gay dads Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith in their quest to have Louisiana issue
Sometimes, in our efforts to correct one instance of intolerance, we forget others. Two weeks ago, a Miami-Dade judge declared Florida’s anti-gay adoption law unconstitutional and allowed Vanessa Alenier to adopt the one-year-old she and her partner Melanie Leon have been fostering. The ultra-conservative Orlando’s Florida Family Policy Council (FPC) sent out an alert to
Rosie O’Donnell’s new documentary A Family Is a Family Is a Family, premieres this Sunday, January 31, at 7 p.m. ET on HBO. I’ve seen a screener, and here are my thoughts. Overall, this is a great film, aimed at the elementary school ages, that focuses on children of various backgrounds speaking about their families.
“The only thing the State or anybody should be looking at, the best interests of the child and how he is loved.” —Florida Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia, in granting Vanessa Alenier’s petition to adopt an infant cousin, despite the state ban on gay men and lesbians adopting children (via Nancy Polikoff)
Parenting Studies “How Does the Gender of Parents Matter?” asks the lead article in this month’s Journal of Marriage and Family. The answer, from sociologists Timothy Biblarz of University of Southern California and Judith Stacey of New York University, is that it doesn’t, with the “partial exception of lactation.” The gender of parents “has minor
(I originally wrote this as my end-of-year newspaper column a few weeks ago. The Jenkins-Miller case has seen some action since that time. The rest, I hope, is a good look back before we move forward.) “Whether children are raised by two parents, a single parent, grandparents, a same-sex couple, or a guardian, families encourage
