NPR.org by Jennifer Ludden 5.17,2012 On the edge of the National Mall on Thursday, dozens of moms, dads and kids pose for a group photo framed by the U.S. Capitol. They’re just some of the approximately 700,000 same-sex families across the country, despite laws in some states that make raising children difficult for gay couples. Now, they’ve come to Washington to ask lawmakers to make their lives a little easier.\ “Today in the United...

May 14, 2012 – New York Times By JACQUELINE MROZ Sharine and Brian Kretchmar of Yukon, Okla., tried a number of medical treatments to conceive a second child. After a depressing series of failures, a doctor finally advised them to find a sperm donor. For more than a year, the Kretchmars carefully researched sperm banks and donors. The donor they chose was a family man, a Christian like them, they were told. Most important, he had a clean bill...

May 8, 2012 New York Times, By BRIAN STELTER On “Glee” this spring, a transgender character named Unique is competing in a sing-off. On “Grey’s Anatomy,” Arizona and Callie are adjusting to married life, having been pronounced “wife and wife” last year. On “Modern Family,” the nation’s most popular television show, Cameron and his partner Mitchell are trying to adopt a second child. What’s missing? The outrage. The cultural...

May 12, 2012, 4:43 pm New York Times By KENJI YOSHINO In a historic interview last week, President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. As he discussed his journey toward that position, the president sounded many familiar themes, like the importance of distinguishing between civil and religious marriage and of living up to American ideals of fairness. At the core of his narrative, however, was a relatively novel element — an affirmation...

ColorLines.com by Kenyon Farrow, May 11, 2012 President Obama’s public support of same-sex marriage helped upright the frowns of many LGBT marriage activists. The president’s endorsement came the day after North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment to ban recognition of any form of relationship that is not a legally married hetereosexual couple. While the passing of Amendment 1 may seem like a big blow to same sex-marriage activists,...

Mombian.com May 3, 2012 Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) has just announced the publication of Transgender Family Law: A Guide to Effective Advocacy, “the first book to comprehensively address legal issues facing transgender people in the family law context and provide practitioners the tools to effectively represent transgender clients.” Co-editor Jennifer Levi, director of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project, called the book...

Seattle (CNN) — David Wing-Kovarik and his partner, Conrad, were ready to adopt a child. They moved through all their requirements smoothly, even completing an orientation and training course for prospective parents. Then they were confronted with their first real stumbling block. “Our adoption agent said, ‘Well, you both look the same on paper, so who’s going to be the parent?’” Wing-Kovarik recalls. In Arizona,...

Salon.com, by Heather A. O’Neal – March 24, 2012 Tommy has two moms and one gay biological dad. But at the age of 4, he had an announcement: He wasn’t like us. A week after my partner, Abbie, and I were married at Brooklyn’s City Hall, our 4-year-old son Tommy came out to me. Tommy had been excited about our wedding. He’d picked out his own tie and asked me to wear my hair like Princess Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.” But...

March 22, 2012 – GayFamilySupport.com I am a wife and mother, together with my husband we are parents of gay children. We have two sons, one is gay, the other bisexual and this is my story. When I first believed my eldest son may be gay, I felt sick in the stomach literally. I went straight to my husband and told him of my thoughts and why I thought this way. He was a little shocked with my news but as there was no real proof of my theory he...

By Brittany Smith , Christian Post Reporter March 8, 2012|6:37 pm Recent studies claiming children raised by lesbian couples are no different than children raised by a mother and a father are flawed, according to a marriage and family expert at Focus on the Family. Glenn Stanton, director for family formation studies at FOTF, has looked at these reports and told The Christian Post that they don’t tell the whole story. He released two separate...