March 29, 2010 New York Times By JON MOOALLEM The Laysan albatross is a downy seabird with a seven-foot wingspan and a notched, pale yellow beak. Every November, a small colony of albatrosses assembles at a place called Kaena Point, overlooking the Pacific at the foot of a volcanic range, on the northwestern tip of Oahu, Hawaii. Each bird has spent the past six months in solitude, ranging over open water as far north as Alaska, and has come back to...

March 26, 2010 – The State Column Arizona is considering a bill of a different sort; one that would block gays from the adoption process. Under the proposal, gays and singles would be exempt from the adoption process; married couples alone would be considered. The bill, written by Republican State Representative Warde Nichols, seems to have little political support. However, it indicates that the gay marriage debate is alive and far from over. Recent...

By Ruth Schneider, 365gay.com 03.25.2010 11:00am EDT A new report from Movement Advancement Project sheds light on stereotypes of senior members of the LGBT community. The report finds “LGBT elders are more likely to live in poverty, face social and community isolation, and lack appropriate health care and long-term care” according to a news release on the group’s Web site. The report, called the first major collaboration between LGBT groups...

By Ruth Schneider, 365gay.com 03.25.2010 9:00am EDT The Florida Legislature took a tentative step forward as it considered bills in both the House and the Senate that would allow gay couples to adopt, reversing a ban that has been in place since the 1970s. Late last week an amendment was attached to a bill seeking to eliminate a requirement to ask prospective parents whether they own firearms. The amendment added language that bans asking the sexual...

Both M (for man) and W (for woman), “romantically involved” at the time, brought the then 10-month-old baby (John Doe – “JD”) to New York for medical treatment in 2003. He has lived since then with W in New York, M meanwhile securing an adoption of him in 2004 under Cambodian law. Although “[b]oth parties love the child, and have participated in caring for him”, there was a falling out between them in late 2005 about how to raise JD,...

By Ruth Schneider, 365gay.com 03.23.2010 2:12pm EDT A North Carolina family is irked their local YMCA doesn’t allow same-sex couples to join at the family rate. Last month, Mark Maxwell and Timothy Young tried to join the Central YMCA as a family. The couple has two adopted children and is planning to adopting a third. They were turned down because they are a same-sex couple. Central YMCA is the only large metropolitan YMCA in the state to refuse...

Lambda Legal Newsletter – 3.11.10 “We hope for a high court decision that will save this six-year-old child from the tragic loss of his mother and bring the law in line with the reality for many New York families.” (New York, February 17, 2010) – Today, Lambda Legal argued before the New York State Court of Appeals on behalf of a non-biological mother after an intermediate appeals court denied her right to seek custody and...

Lambda Legal Newsletter March 11, 2010 Days after decision awarding birth certificate to gay parents of adopted son, Louisiana attorney general again blocks state action. Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell on March 4 asked the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to review the February 20 decision by one of the Court’s three-judge panels that the Louisiana Registrar of Vital Statistics must respect a New York adoption of a Louisiana-born...

Baltimore Sun 1:40 PM EST, March 10, 2010 Kudos to Washington for legalizing same-sex marriage (“Wedding bells ring for same-sex couples in D.C.”, March 10). For the many couples who are or will be exchanging vows in D.C., they are no longer denied the rights of marriage that other Americans enjoy and take for granted. I was moved by the photo of the tearfully happy female couple who were just married and by the statement of a male couple...

March 9, 2010 New York Times By DAMIEN CAVE MIAMI — The movie “Bait Shop” had too much boozing to earn the extra rebate from Florida’s “family friendly” program of incentives for film production. “Confessions of a Shopaholic” was, well, just too violent. “There’s a scene where the woman is fighting over shoes and she is beating another woman with a shoe,” said Lucia Fishburne, the state’s film commissioner, adding: “We err...