Married couples will have preference when it comes to adopting children under a new measure signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday. Senate Bill 1188, which was sponsored by Sen. Linda Gray, R-Glendale, would require an adoption agency to give primary consideration to adoptive placement with a married man and woman, with all other criteria being equal. Agencies are also supposed to consider other factors, including possible placement with relatives,...

Washington Post – 4.20.11 By Anita Kumar RICHMOND — The State Board of Social Services has voted overwhelmingly against new adoption rules that some say would allow same-sex couples to adopt in the state for the first time. In a 7-2 vote Wednesday afternoon, the board opted against the new rules, first proposed by former governor Tim Kaine. In Virginia, only married couples and single men and women, regardless of sexual orientation,...

By Anita Kumar, Monday, April , 8:38 PM Washington Post RICHMOND — Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is considering whether to try to derail proposed regulations developed by his Democratic predecessor that would for the first time allow gay couples to adopt children in Virginia. McDonnell has less than two weeks to act on the regulations that would force state-licensed private and church-run agencies to allow unmarried couples — heterosexual...

Mombian – 2.24.2011 What a day yesterday, hmm? The Department of Justice says it won’t defend the Defense of Marriage Act. Not to mention that Maryland is edging closer to marriage equality (expect a final vote in the next day or two), and civil unions are now legal in Hawaii. (That is, the governor has signed the bill—it doesn’t go into effect until January 1, 2012.) Equality marches on, but it hasn’t been and still won’t be an easy...

Mombian – January 4, 2011 I’m still recovering from the holidays, so let’s be different and start with some celebrity news before diving into politics: Celebrity News Elton John and his partner David Furnish are now proud parents. “Elton John and David Furnish became first-time fathers on Christmas after welcoming a baby boy via a surrogate,” says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Just once, though, I want to see a newspaper headline...

November 6, 2010 New York Times By ERIK ECKHOLM HELENA, Mont. — Alarmed by evidence that gay and lesbian students are common victims of schoolyard bullies, many school districts are bolstering their antiharassment rules with early lessons in tolerance, explaining that some children have “two moms” or will grow up to love members of the same sex. But such efforts to teach acceptance of homosexuality, which have gained urgency after several well-publicized...

By Candace Chellew-Hodge – 6.21.10 When President Obama issued his statement this past weekend in recognition of Father’s Day, he mentioned one class of fathers that no other president before him has acknowledged: gay dads. Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a stepfather, a grandfather, or caring guardian. His acknowledgement of the labor of love two...

Advocate.com May 15, 2010 By Advocate.com Editors A lesbian couple are suing Iowa state officials for printing on their daughter’s birth certificate that she has only one parent and was born out of wedlock. Heather Lynn Martin Gartner, 38, and Melissa McCoy Gartner, 39, filed suit against two state health department officials on behalf of their daughter Mackenzie, who was born in September, because her birth certificate lists only Heather as the...

May 4, 2010 By Anthony M. Brown, Esq. The New York Court of Appeals issued their ruling today on what had been considered to be a potentially landmark case, Debra H. v. Janice R.  In their ruling, the court allowed the plaintiff, Debra H., access to her non-biological child with whom she had been denied visitation from the biological mother, Janice R.  That sounds great, right?  Wrong. In doing so, the court allowed to stand the precedent  notion...

By Bill Barrow, The Times-Picayune April 27, 2010, 12:55PM Lengthy and passionate testimony in the Senate Judiciary A Committee today ended with a 3-1 party line rejection of a measure that would have expanded gay adoption in Louisiana. Senate Bill 129, which ended up as a combination of two measures by Sens. Ed Murray and J.P. Morrell, would have allowed unmarried couples to jointly adopt and allow an existing parent to petition a court to add a...