Let’s round it up, folks. Here’s what’s been happening while I was busy cooking and stuffing myself on turkey and pie this past week or so. (I’m Jewish; I take this whole “eight-day holiday” thing seriously.)
- The Ally of the Week post goes to straight mom Rhiana Maidenberg for her post at HuffPo about her daughters’ growing up in a world of different types of families. (One asks her: “Why don’t we get to have two moms, like Bea and Lena?”)
- Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter is planning legal reforms to address parenting issues not addressed in the country’s civil partnership laws. The reforms would allow non-biological parents in a same-sex couple to be legal parents, and would also address “guardianship, custody and access laws and . . . ensure maintenance and inheritance rights for the children of civil partners.”
- Texas State Rep. Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas) has filed a bill that would allow same-sex adoptive parents to have both of their names listed on their children’s birth certificates. He has filed the bill at least twice before, without success.
- In a case related to an opposite-sex couple, but which has ramifications for all couples, the Kansas Court of Appeals has ruled that the state does not permit second-parent adoption, writes lawyer Nancy Polikoff.
- The ACLU is suing a Utah school district for its decision to specially shelve In Our Mothers’ House
, a book about a family with lesbian moms, and to require written parental permission before students can check it out. I like the Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial response to the parents who wanted the book removed: “Teaching children to accept people who are different in some way is not brainwashing. It is, simply, education.”
- A new scholarly literature review in the journal Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing looks at  LGBT-parented families and their experience with healthcare services for their children. It concludes, “Although many LGBT parents have positive experiences of health care, some still experience discrimination and prejudice,” and recommends “specific educational interventions” as well as further research that includes children’s experiences.
- Finally, add “arboreal pyrotechnics” to the gay agenda. Gay dad and actor Neil Patrick Harris will host the 90th annual National Christmas Tree Lighting on December 6.
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