2016 Impact Award Honors Anthony M. Brown

Gay City News announced this week that they would be honoring a select group New Yorkers to receive their first ever Impact Award for 2016.  Among those honored is Anthony M. Brown, founder of Time For Families.

 

Anthony, recipient of the 2016 Impact Award, currently is an associate with the law firm of Albert W. Chianese & Associates heading their Family and Estates Law division serving unmarried individuals, couples and families in Manhattan and on Long Island.  Anthony is the Executive Director of The Wedding Party and has been a Board member since its inception in 1999.   The Wedding Party is a non-profit educational organization that educates the public about marriage and its importance to all citizens through outreach programs and strategic media placement.  Anthony is the Board Chairman of Men Having Babies, a non-profit organization created to assist gay men looking to create families through surrogacy with educational and financial assistance. Anthony is also a legal consultant for Family By Design, a co-parenting information and matching website.

anthony brown

Anthony & Family

Anthony worked as a legal intern for Lambda Legal in the summer of 2002. While there he helped to prepare briefing for the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas and his research was quoted specifically in Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s concurring opinion. Anthony also worked as a law guardian at The Children’s Law Center, representing the legal needs of children in Brooklyn Family Court.   Anthony graduated from Brooklyn Law School, where he served as research assistant to Nan Hunter, the founder of The Gay and Lesbian Project at the ACLU. Anthony is a member of The Family Law Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the New York County Lawyers Association and the committee for assisted reproduction of the American Bar Association.  Anthony and his husband were the subjects of CNN’s, “In America, Gary and Tony Have a Baby,” a 2010 documentary about their journey of having a child through surrogacy.

“I am grateful to be honored with this award, especially considering the other honorees.  Thanks to Gay City news and The Point Foundation for the hard work they do for our community everyday,” said Anthony.

 

 

in Legal / Parenting / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Jason and David: Gay Dads Before They were 30

 

Gay dads David and Jason Bragg-Sutton are a different kind of gay dads. Living north of Tulsa, Okla., in America’s heartland, they have become the parents of three children adopted through the foster care system.

But that’s not what’s different about them. What is? The fact that both did so while under the age of 30.

 

For David Bragg-Sutton, it was a no-brainer. He and his husband became a couple some six years ago, when they were 21 and 26, respectively. Soon afterward, they decided they wanted to start a family, and soon.

Adopted in infancy by a pair of older parents, David says he knew that he wanted to be an active participant in his kids’ lives, when they’re young children and as well as adults. In short, he wants to experience the world with them.

Gay dads

“I want to hang out with them,” he said. “I don’t want to say no to going on a vacation [because of physical limitations]. That was important to me. I want to grow with my children,” David says. “I want to live my life with my children.”

But when David and Jason embarked upon their journey to create a family, they had to change plans and adjust expectations in a big way. They knew they wanted multiple children, for example, but they planned to add them gradually. They also wanted to raise an infant.

After plans for surrogacy with a mutual friend didn’t pan out, they found themselves looking at Oklahoma’s foster care system, and facing some hard truths.

“When we got into the foster care system, our worker told us, ‘You are going to face barriers, as gay parents and as gay parents seeking an infant,’” David says.

Their initial experiences seemed to bear this out. After filling out reams of paperwork, David and Jason opened their home for potential children. And then they waited for 13 months.

Most gay dads have experienced that wait, in one way or another. Fundamentally, it doesn’t matter if the wait is three months or three years. It’s still a period of reflection and anxiety. For the Bragg-Suttons, it was a time of adjusting their expectations, of rethinking what they were willing to do.

At the beginning, they were only interested in seeing children who were young and available to adopt on their own.

But then their social worker began to prod them to change their approach. Eventually they said they were willing to consider sibling groups and somewhat older kids.

They began spending hours at the offices of the Department of Human Services, looking through packets of children who were legally free for adoption.

“We wanted to be very researched,” Jason says. “We really dug into what we signed up for.”

Finally, they were connected with a sibling group of three children, Taylor, 10; Madelynn, 6; and William, 5. On Oct. 5, 2013, they heard they were matched. On Oct. 17, they met the kids at a pizza parlor in Tulsa.

via GaysWithKids.com – February 19, 2016

Click here to read the entire article.

in Adoption / Family Stories / Parenting / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

How to teach … LGBT history month

February is LGBT history month – the annual celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender – LGBT Families and people and the impact they have on the world. It’s a topic that staff and students can find difficult to discuss; a recent report found that more than half of England’s teachers feel there is “a reluctance to confront the issue of same-sex relationships and a clear heterosexist assumption”

This makes LGBT history month all the more important. The theme for this year is religion, belief and philosophy, and how all three intertwine in the experience of LGBT families and people. This activity pack from the Proud Trust offers a series of lesson plans and resources on the topic, which can be adapted for students of all ages. Here are some other ways to explore the subject with your classes.
LGBT Families

Primary

Addressing feelings of “otherness” is key in discussions of LGBT rights. This poster from Stonewall gives your class a visual representation of the many different kinds of family set-up. The simple animated images show a variety of families, along with the slogan “Different Families, Same Love”.

The charity has also put together a film called FREE, which follows the lives of four children as they experience family and friendship, and work out what it means to be yourself (including the quote: “when you’re strong enough to be yourself, you free everyone”). The accompanying activity pack includes tasks that ask pupils to write a letter, song or poem and analyse stereotypical statements about gender and identity, such as “girls should play with dolls”.

The Guardian
February 18, 2016
 Click here to read the entire article.
in Education / In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Is a Surrogate a Mother?

A battle over triplets raises difficult questions about the ethics of the surrogacy industry and the meaning of parenthood.

Last year, a 47-year-old California woman named Melissa Cook decided to become a commercial surrogate. Cook is a mother of four, including a set of triplets, and had served as a surrogate once before, delivering a baby for a couple in 2013. According to her lawyer, Harold Cassidy, she’d found it to be a rewarding way to supplement the salary she earned at her office job. “Like other women in this situation, she was motivated by two things: One, it was a good thing to do for people, and two, she needed some money,” Cassidy says.

For her second surrogacy, Cook signed up with a broker called Surrogacy International. Robert Walmsley, a fertility attorney and part owner of the firm, says he was initially reluctant to work with her because of her age, but relented after she presented a clean bill of health from her doctor. Eventually, Surrogacy International matched her with a would-be father, known in court filings as C.M.

surrogacy ethics

According to a lawsuit filed on Cook’s behalf in United States District Court in Los Angeles earlier this month, C.M. is a 50-year-old single man, a postal worker who lives with his elderly parents in Georgia. Cook never met him in person, and because C.M. is deaf, Cassidy says the two never spoke on the phone or communicated in any way except via email. In May, Cook signed a contract promising her $33,000 to carry a pregnancy, plus a $6,000 bonus in case of multiples. In August, Jeffrey Steinberg, a high-profile fertility doctor, used in vitro fertilization to implant Cook with three male embryos that were created using C.M.’s sperm and a donor egg. (According to the lawsuit, the gender selection was done at C.M.’s request.) When an egg donor is under 35, as C.M.’s was, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine strongly recommends implanting only one embryo to avoid a multiple pregnancy, but some clinics will implant more to increase the chances that at least one will prove viable. In this case, they all survived. For the second time in her life, Cook was pregnant with triplets. And soon, the virtual relationship she had with their father would fall apart.

Cook and C.M. are still strangers to each other, but they are locked in a legal battle over both the future of the children she’s going to bear and the institution of surrogacy itself. Because she’s come under pressure to abort one of the fetuses, Cook’s case has garnered some conservative media attention. This story, however, is about much more than the abortion wars. It illustrates some of the thorniest issues plaguing the fertility industry: the creation of high-risk multiple pregnancies, the lack of screening of intended parents, the financial vulnerability of surrogates, and the almost complete lack of regulation around surrogacy in many states.

The United States is one of the few developed countries where commercial, or paid, surrogacy is allowed—it is illegal in Canada and most of Europe. In the U.S., it’s governed by a patchwork of contradictory state laws. Eight states expressly authorize it. Four states—New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Michigan—as well as the District of Columbia prohibit it. In the remaining states, there’s either no law at all on commercial surrogacy or it is allowed with restrictions.

California is considered a particularly friendly place for surrogacy arrangements. In 1993, a California Supreme Court ruling, Johnson v. Calvert, denied the attempts of a gestational surrogate named Anna Johnson to assert maternal rights. (A gestational surrogate is one like Cook who has no genetic relationship to the fetus or fetuses she caries.) What mattered in determining maternity, the court ruled, were the intentions of the various parties going into the pregnancy: “Because two women each have presented acceptable proof of maternity, we do not believe this case can be decided without enquiring into the parties’ intentions as manifested in the surrogacy agreement,” the court said. It was a victory for Walmsley, who represented the couple who’d hired Johnson as their surrogate.

Slate.com, February 15, 2016, by Michelle Goldberg

Click here to read the entire article.

in Ethics / In the News / IVF / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Mitch McConnell’s Stance in Scalia Confirmation Fight Could Help and Hurt G.O.P.

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell’s strategy to maintain the Republican majority has been clear: trying to prove that his party can govern. But by saying he will block a Supreme Court nominee for Scalia who has not even been named, Mr. McConnell is headed toward partisan warfare instead.

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has energized a right flank that has been long suspicious of Mr. McConnell and forced him into a fight that is likely to derail his smooth-functioning Senate. The tactic could alienate moderate voters and imperil incumbent Republicans in swing states, but in the supercharged partisanship of a Supreme Court fight, he probably had no choice. By framing his decision as deferring to voters in the next election, people close to him say he has minimized the political risk.

“It was necessary,” said Josh Holmes, Mr. McConnell’s former chief of staff, who now works as a Republican consultant. “The suggestion that the American people should have a say here isn’t exactly risky ground to be treading.

scalia

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks at an event sponsored by the Federalist Society at the New York Athletic Club in New York October 13, 2014. REUTERS/Darren Ornitz . SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage.

“As for the politics,” he continued, “if anyone thinks the center of the electorate is clamoring for Obama to name another left-wing jurist they’re nuts. The liberal left will be as loud as they ever have been, but the reality is that the consternation will be confined to the activist left.”

Mr. McConnell’s other calculation is that if Democrats maintain the White House and take back the Senate, he will at least have denied President Obama a closing victory on the court. If Republicans take over, any heat he will take in the next year for the highly unusual move of blocking a nominee will have been worth it.

He has spent his leadership of the slender Republican majority balancing the demands of conservatives, who view Mr. Obama’s presidency as an eight-year constitutional crisis, and his obligations to vulnerable Republicans up for re-election this year. He has chosen the conservatives.

But events in the coming months could confound that decision. Mr. Obama’s nominee will put a face on what Democrats will call a clear case of obstruction, giving them someone to rally around. And a divided court must render decisions on abortion-clinic access, affirmative action at universities and Mr. Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Every deadlocked 4-to-4 decision will spotlight the Senate’s inaction, amplifying Democrats’ cries of irresponsibility but also highlighting the stakes for conservatives set against enabling a left-leaning court majority.

New York times, By Jennifer Steinhauer – February 14, 2016

Click here to read the entire article.

in In the News / Legal / Legislation  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Tips For Estate Planning – Inside Information

Tips for estate planning can come from many people and places. The most important thing that you probably won’t hear is that you may have already done a substantial amount of estate planning without even knowing it.

The best tips for estate planning that I can offer involve a little basic education first. Most people, when they hear the term, “estate planning,” they think of Wills and, in some cases, trusts.  While Wills are a necessity and a Trust can be helpful in certain circumstances, you can take critical steps to protect your family without even having a Will or Trust.

Estate Planning For Same Sex Couples

Probate Assets

To understand this, you must understand what a Last Will and Testament does. A Will passes probate assets to your beneficiaries, the people you choose to receive them.  A probate asset is anything that is owned solely by an individual.  Examples of probate assets include your personal property and furnishings, bank accounts held solely in your name or a car, house or apartment titled solely in your name alone.

Non-Probate Assets

Wills do not cover, or pass, non-probate assets.  These assets pass outside a Will and, usually, are transferred to specified recipients much faster than if they would if transferred by a Will.  Examples of non-probate assets include accounts or policies with designated beneficiaries, like life insurance or joint bank accounts.  They also include property titled as joint tenants with rights of survivorship or tenancy by the entirety (how married couples jointly own property.)  Real property owned as joint tenants with rights of survivorship or tenancy by the entirety automatically passes to the joint owner upon the death of the first to die.

If you are in a long term relationship and have an IRA, a 401(k) or 403(b) account, a brokerage account, a joint bank account and you own your home or apartment jointly with your spouse or partner, then there is relatively little that would be considered a “probate” asset, therefore, very little need for the probate process.  Just make sure that you have named your spouse or partner as the primary designated beneficiary and you are good to go.  You can also name a secondary beneficiary on these accounts.

What is Probate?

While the specific process differs state by state, probate is the process that transfers legal title of property from the estate of the person who has died to those named in that person’s Last Will and Testament under the supervision of the local surrogates or probate court. If the person who has died has successfully minimized their inventory of probate assets, then there may be nothing which would require a probate court’s intervention.  This is successful estate planning.

Wills and Trust

It is always wise to have a Will, even if you have maximized your non-probate assets. Wills ensure that nothing falls between the cracks and, if your probate estate is under a certain amount, for example – in New York, a small estate proceeding can be accomplished if probate assets are valued at less than $30,000.00 – then you may be able to avoid a full probate proceeding.  If you have children that are minors, you should consider creating a Will with a testamentary trust (a trust that does not come into existence unless you, or you and your spouse or partner both die).  This trust allows you to control the way money is distributed to a minor and by whom.  Trusts are also advisable for people who own property in states other than those in which they reside.  This will help to avoid costly and redundant probate proceedings.  Click here for more information about what documents constitute a complete estate plan.

For more information on tips for estate planning for same sex couples, contact Anthony M. Brown at Time for Families and speak to a specialist family lawyer to secure your and your family’s future.  Click here to read more about estate planning for same sex couples.

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in Estate Planning / Featured Articles  by Anthony Brown 3 comments

Surrogacy Ethics – Is It Selfish for a Gay Couple to Have Kids via Surrogacy?

Surrogacy ethics are in the news more and more around the world.  Are gay men’s options for family limited to adoption?

 

Question – My husband and I are gay and are exploring the possibility of having children using an egg donor and a surrogate mother. Sometimes when we mention this in conversation, people ask us, in a chiding tone, Why don’t you adopt? They often then argue that with so many children in need of good homes, it would be ethically superior for us to adopt, instead of spending a small fortune so we can have children to whom we are genetically tied. In addition, there are ethical issues related to paying women for their eggs or paying women to carry our children as surrogates. Are we acting unethically — or at the least selfishly or self-indulgently — in pursuing biological children instead of adopting orphans who could benefit from what (we like to think) would be a good home? David Lat, New York

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Answer – Anybody who is contemplating having a baby, by whatever means, could be adopting a child instead. If those who chide you include people who have biological children themselves, you might want to point this out. Come to think of it, your friends who don’t have children are also free, if they meet the legal requirements, to adopt. Every child awaiting adoption is someone who could benefit from parental volunteers. There is no good reason to pick on you.

The path you have chosen, it’s true, mixes commerce and reproduction through egg donation and surrogacy. But while acquiring an egg and then working with a surrogate mother are transactions with ethical risks, they can each be conducted in morally permissible ways. The main concerns I would have as to surrogacy ethics are avoiding exploitation — so you need to make sure that the donor and the surrogate are acting freely and are fairly compensated — and taking care that your understanding with the surrogate mother is clearly laid out in advance. But any responsible agency that assists you in this should cover these bases.

Wanting a biological connection with your child is pretty normal: We evolved to pass on our genes, after all, even if we’re free to give Mother Nature the side-eye.

New York Times, By KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH FEB. 10, 2016

Click here to read the entire article.

in Egg Donation / Ethics / Recently Added / Second Parent Adoption / Step Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Conversion Therapy Banned by Governor Cuomo Through Executive Actions Banning Coverage By Private Insurers

Multi-agency regulations announced today ban public and private health care insurers from covering conversion therapy in New York State

Governor Cuomo: “We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBT young people for simply being who they are.”

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a series of comprehensive regulations to prevent the practice of so-called lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender “conversion therapy,” which has been deemed harmful to patients by a wide variety of leading medical and mental health professionals. Multi-agency regulations announced today ban public and private health care insurers from covering the practice in New York State, and also prohibit various mental health facilities across the state from conducting the practice on minors.

“Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice that is counter to everything this state stands for,” said Governor Cuomo. “New York has been at the forefront of acceptance and equality for the LGBT community for decades – and today we are continuing that legacy and leading by example. We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBT young people for simply being who they are.”

CONVERSION

The New York State Department of Financial Services is issuing regulations barring New York insurers from providing coverage for conversion therapy given to an individual under the age of 18. Additionally, the New York State Department of Health is prohibiting coverage of conversion therapy under New York’s Medicaid program and the New York State Office of Mental Health is issuing regulations prohibiting facilities under its jurisdiction from providing conversion therapy treatment to minors.

Conversion therapy – which refers to therapy intended to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity – has been repudiated by many medical and professional organizations, including: the American Academy of Pediatrics; the American Counseling Association; the American Psychiatric Association; the American Psychological Association; the American School Counselor Association; the National Association of School Psychologists; and the National Association of Social Workers.

“Governor Cuomo and the State of New York are commended for taking a principled and scientific stand,” said American Psychiatric Association President Renee Binder, M.D. “APA has long recognized that so-called reparative therapy is not a scientifically validated treatment and can, in fact, undermine self-esteem and be hazardous.”

Warren Seigel, MD, FAAP, Chair of the New York State Academy of Pediatrics, said: “Being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is not a disease, disorder, illness, deficiency, or shortcoming. The American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as all major professional associations of health and mental health practitioners and child and adolescent development specialists in the United State have recognized this fact for nearly 40 years. We are very pleased by the actions announced today to help protect vulnerable gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth from discredited, sham and dangerous interventions. We applaud Governor Cuomo for his bold leadership on this issue.”

in Ethics / In the News / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Egg Donor Prices Cap Lawsuit Settled By Fertility Industry

The nation’s leading professional association of fertility specialists has reached a settlement with a group of women who claimed the medical group’s guidelines on human egg donor prices violated federal antitrust laws.

Two women who provided eggs to couples struggling with infertility sued the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in federal court in San Francisco in 2011, claiming that the group artificially suppressed the amount they can get for their eggs. Two other women later joined the case.

The medical group agreed to delete provisions in its guidelines concerning egg donor compensation, according to the proposed settlement filed in court last week. It also agreed to pay plaintiffs’ lawyers $1.5 million in fees and costs. The four named plaintiffs would also receive $5,000 each. The settlement needs court approval.

As WSJ’s Ashby Jones earlier reported, the lawsuit challenged egg fee guidelinesestablished by the organization more than a decade ago. The group, which represents fertility specialists, suggested that payments for donated human eggs should not go above $5,000 without justification, and said that payments greater than $10,000 went “beyond what is appropriate.”

The price guidelines aren’t mandates. But more than 90% of the nation’s clinics belong to the society, so they’re widely followed.

anonymous egg donor

Industry groups behind the price guidance say caps are needed to prevent coercion and exploitation in the egg-donation process. But the plaintiffs claimed the guidance amount to an illegal conspiracy to set prices.

Under the terms of the settlement, which still needs final court approval, ASRM agreed to delete some language from the guidelines. According to the proposed settlement:

ASRM will amend the challenged report concerning donor compensation by removing numbered paragraph 3 (which reads “[t]otal payments to donors in excess of $5,000 require justification and sums above $10,000 are not appropriate.”) and by removing the following language from page 4: “Although there is no consensus on the precise payment that oocyte donors should receive, at this time sums of $5,000 or more require justification and sums above $10,000 are not appropriate” and “A recent survey indicates that these sums are in line with the practice of most SART member clinics.”

by Jacob Gershman, Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2016

Click here to read the entire article.

in Egg Donation / In the News / Legal / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same-Sex Parents (and Our Kids) Speak Out

Same-sex relationship recognition is up for a vote in both Italy and Switzerland in the coming weeks—and same-sex parents are, not surprisingly, helping to push for equality. And in Australia, one 11-year-old girl is speaking out for her family.

Italy’s civil union bill comes up for a vote next Tuesday, and includes a provision that would allow for second-parent (or stepchild) adoptions. Martina and Julia, a same-sex parents of an infant live in Rome and were profiled in Vanity Fair Italy about their family. They discuss the 13 attempts in two countries (Denmark and England) to create their son, the community they found through the national organization for LGBT parents, Famiglie Arcobaleno (Rainbow Families), how they have tried to legally protect their family, and their response to those who oppose equality for families like theirs. (Google Translate does a decent, though not perfect, job for those who don’t read Italian.)

mombian

The New York Times, in its coverage of the Italian civil union debate, also led with a parenting story, that of Dario De Gregorio and Andrea Rubera. The men married in Canada, became parents of three children, then returned to their native Italy where their relationship was not recognized and custody of their children was divided because they could not adopt each other’s biological kids. The stepchild adoption provision of the civil union bill, however, may be “too far-reaching” for some legislators, the NYT reports.

CNN followed the NYT and a few days later dug further into De Gregorio and Rubera’s story in “Gay dads hope Italy approves law on same-sex civil unions and parenthood.” Rubera told CNN that opponents of civil unions say “You stole your kids, you stole your kids from their mother. You denied to your kids to have a mother, you bought your kids from the supermarket like watermelons.” He adds, “It’s difficult to imagine if you aren’t living in Italy … how strong and awful the public debate about civil unions has become.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Mombian.com, January 29, 2016

in International / Parenting / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 0 comments