National News Notes, q-notes.com by David Stout | October 31st, 2009, 12:08 am WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) has introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act (HR 3827) which would codify sexual orientation non-discrimination in foster care placements and adoptions nationwide. According to reports, there are approximately 65,500 adopted children being raised by lesbian or gay parents. LGBT singles and couples are also raising an estimated...

October 30, 2009, New York Times By ABBY GOODNOUGH BOSTON — The Maine attorney general is prodding a national group that fights same-sex marriage to reveal its donors by Election Day, after a federal judge on Wednesday denied the group’s request for a restraining order. Voters will decide on Tuesday whether to repeal Maine’s law allowing same-sex marriage, a ballot question that has been the focus of a heated battle this fall. As of last Friday,...

October 28, 2009, 10:37 am , New York Times, By Steven D. Levitt Roughly 15 years ago, before there was such a thing as Baby Einstein, I had a business idea that emerged from a dinner conversation with a linguist. We got to talking about how hard it was for adults learning foreign languages to ever sound like native speakers. One reason for this is, apparently, is that there are sounds that occur in some languages and not others. If you are raised...

By Lisa Neff, columnist, 365gay.com 10.28.2009 10:54am EDT They were known to their neighbors as Sister Tricia and Sister Keya. They were not sisters, as in siblings or nuns. They were partners of more than 15 years and they were making a difference in a their neighborhood in the Quad-Cities, Ill., where I worked as a reporter for a daily newspaper in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their neighborhood, their community, was managed by a local housing...

October 22, 2009, New York Times By HILARY STOUT JACKIE KLEIN is a devoted mother of two little boys in the suburbs of Portland, Ore. She spends hours ferrying them to soccer and Cub Scouts. She reads child-development books. She can emulate one of those pitch-perfect calm maternal tones to warn, “You’re making bad choices” when, say, someone doesn’t want to brush his teeth. That is 90 percent of the time. Then there is the other 10 percent,...

Measure would penalize states with anti-gay laws By CHRIS JOHNSON, Washington Blade Oct 19 2009, 5:32 PM A federal lawmaker is touting an adoption anti-discrimination bill he recently introduced as a way to find more homes for children living in the welfare system. U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) on Oct. 15 introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which would restrict federal funds for states that discriminate in adoption or foster programs...

October 12, 2009, New York Times 21st Century Babies By STEPHANIE SAUL It was the last piece of advice Thomas and Amanda Stansel wanted to hear. But their fertility doctor was delivering it, without sugarcoating. Reduce, or you will lose them all, he told them. For more than a year the Stansels had been relying on Dr. George Grunert, one of the busiest fertility doctors in Houston, to produce his industry’s coveted product — a healthy baby. He...

October 11, 2009, New York Times 21st Century Babies By STEPHANIE SAUL Scary. Like aliens. That is how Kerry Mastera remembers her twins, Max and Wes, in the traumatic days after they were born nine weeks early. Machines forced air into the infants’ lungs, pushing their tiny chests up and down in artificial heaves. Tubes delivered nourishment. They were so small her husband’s wedding band fit around an entire baby foot. Having a family had been...