Lgbt Parents

On this Mother's Day we will honor our little family of three. We will celebrate our love, our commitment, and our journey as parents of an amazing child who inspires us to laugh, love, and enjoy and accept life's lessons.

The damage facing children of gay parents is not caused by their parents' sexuality but by outsiders who do not respect their families. Ironically, the opponents of same-sex marriage who profess to be thinking only of the children are harming children with their intolerance.

They are the first full generation of children reared by openly LGBT parents, and they are now reaching young adulthood. Now, this generation is ready to be outspoken about their families.

My wife Tracie and I have been playing "suburban lesbian poster family" since our oldest son was kickin' it in utero. But I have a confession to make: the rally cry of the marriage equality movement -- "We're just like everyone else!" -- doesn't fit for me.

Many of my friends in the LGBT community have had or adopted children, but very few children's shows exist where these young people can see representations of their families. I plan to help change that with my next film project: Family Restaurant.

Perhaps if there were more children's books that dared to show LGBTQ people adopting, working with surrogates, going to sperm banks, or meeting co-parents, there would be more understanding about what it means to make and raise babies in non-traditional ways.

Modern Family highlights a common contemporary media image of gay parenting: wealthy, urban, white gay men raising an adopted child. However, U.S. Census Bureau data suggest that same-sex couples raising children are substantially more diverse.

It's hard to remember and hard to imagine, frankly, a time when just the simple fact of being gay or lesbian meant that you could have no relationship with your children. The courts automatically presumed you were an unfit parent.

My parents, once so concerned about Sophie's welfare, long ago realized that she is one blessed little girl. She has more family in her life, more people to love her and love on her, and more people to turn to than most girls her age.

After talking with Sean awhile, the differences of gender, location, and financial status just weren't that big a deal. We are families founded in love and built with work and determination. And we both know all those people shrieking "think of the children!" are full of it.

Celebrate. Commit. Connect. Those are the new year's resolutions for the Family Equality Council, and I hope they will be yours in 2012. This year, ...

The Iowa Department of Public Health has been ordered to issue a new birth certificate listing both members of a same-sex marriage as the legal parent...

Whenever any of the parents is asked how many children they have, each gives the same answer: seven. Jane only gave birth to five of them. Only one is Robert's biological child. Kay isn't genetically connected to a single one. But they all know they have seven children.

It's obvious that Zach Wahls is a loved kid. You can instantly tell by the way he talks about his family. The wild popularity of Zach's testimony is so important because not everyone has had the opportunity to get to know families like his.

It's not easy being gay in America, and even harder in Nashville, due to the homophobic climate. So I've been asked by several people in Nashville, "Why would you do a show like Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys?"

My heart goes out to the more than 400,000 children who have no permanent family to call their own this Thanksgiving. Because of discriminatory state laws, many who want to be parents and also happen to be LGBT cannot open up their homes to these kids.

While the end of Catholic Charities' adoption contract lawsuit is a victory for the equal application of the law and state services, the fight over civil rights and equality between LGBT Americans and powerful religious organizations is far from over.

Over and over again, the Catholic dioceses have made the conscious decision to abandon orphans and foster children rather than place them in loving, forever homes, based on nothing in their actual belief system.

A patchwork of discriminatory state laws and policies are excluding qualified LGBT parents from the pool of foster and adoptive parents. Those policies are in effect denying homes to the 115,000 children who are eligible for adoption each year.

By limiting marriage to only one man and one woman for federal purposes, DOMA denies 1,138 rights, responsibilities and benefits to legally married same-sex couples and their children.

As more and more LGBT couples are getting married and starting families, we have a great opportunity to place children without a family into happy homes, either by adoption or foster care.

-- According to her dads, life is good for Carrigan Starling-Littlefield, a spunky 5-year-old being raised by two gay men in South Carolina, which do...

Nobody would ever ask a biological mom how much her out-of-pocket expenses were for a week of neonatal ICU for her preemie. But let anyone know you adopted or used a gestational surrogate or egg donor, and people feel entitled to ask the price tag.

Even the LGBTQ community feels pressure to portray our families as "perfect," upper-class, mainstream, two-parent homes. It's time to be proud of the variety of familial structures that have existed forever and the new ones we are building.