New York Times December 13, 2011 By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD Since the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriage, such couples are viewed as strangers in many spheres of their financial lives. They need to file separate federal tax returns, for instance. And sometimes, that can come with certain advantages. Take the adoption tax credit. If you adopt your spouse’s child, you cannot claim the credit. But since same-sex married couples are...

By SABRINA TAVERNISE – New York Times – August 25, 2011 REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — So much for San Francisco. The list of top cities for same-sex couples as a portion of the population does not include that traditional gay mecca, according to new census data. In fact, the city, which ranked third in 1990 and 11th in 2000, plummeted to No. 28 in 2010. And West Hollywood, once No. 1, has dropped out of the top five. The Census Bureau data,...

July 4, 2011 – New York Times - By LAURA M. HOLSON Laura Ashmore and Jennifer Williams are sisters. After that, their relationship becomes more complex. When Ms. Ashmore and her husband, Lee, learned a few years ago that they could not conceive a child, Ms. Williams stepped in and offered to become pregnant with a donor’s sperm on behalf of the couple, and give birth to the child. The baby, Mallory, was born in September 2007 and adopted...

Huffington Post – Frederick Hertz – March 8, 2011 A recent decision by the Texas Court of Appeals in Houston illustrates the complexity — and the nastiness — of one particularly ugly gay divorce. The partners lived in Houston but they traveled to Canada in 2003 to get married and then they registered as domestic partners in California in 2005. Because of the restrictions on gay partnerships and parentage in Texas, they arranged...

 Lambda Legal, January 14, 2011 Five-year-old son raised by two fathers still without accurate birth certificate. (New Orleans, January 14, 2011) – The full 16-member U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments on Wednesday, January 19, 2011, regarding the New York adoption of a Louisiana-born baby boy by a same-sex couple. Lambda Legal represents Oren Adar and Mickey Smith in their case against Louisiana State Registrar Darlene...

July 28, 2010, 11:26 am – New York Times - By LISA BELKIN Data drives policy. Or, at least, it should. In recent months there have been several studies suggesting that children raised by same-sex couples are certainly no worse off (and in some ways are arguably better off) than children raised by heterosexual couples. Now, in an article titled “Parenting and Child Development in Adoptive Families: Does Parental Sexual Orientation Matter?”...

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 - New York Times – By JEREMY W. PETERS ALBANY — New York State’s highest court somewhat expanded the rights of gay and lesbian parents on Tuesday in a narrow ruling that said nonbiological parents in same-sex relationships should be treated the same as biological parents. But the high court, the Court of Appeals, declined to resolve two cases involving lesbian parents and instead sent both back to lower courts, saying that...

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...