Change.org: First Round Voting Ends Today

In an earlier post I asked you to vote up an idea for change titled All Children Deserve Loving Families.

The first round of voting ends today, 12/31/2008 at midnight Pacific time.  This idea is currently in 6th place in the gay rights category and needs 214 more votes to make it to the second round.

Please go and vote it up today.  Please promote this idea by emailing it to all your friends, sharing it on social networking sites, and promoting it on you blog.

Adoption Ban in Arkansas Challenged

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — More than a dozen families sued Tuesday to challenge a new Arkansas law banning unmarried couples living together from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

The Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families in Pulaski County Circuit Court seeking to overturn Act 1, which was approved by voters in last month’s general election.

“Act 1 violates the state’s legal duty to place the best interest of children above all else,” said Marie-Bernarde Miller, a Little Rock attorney in the lawsuit.

The group sued on behalf of 29 adults and children from more than a dozen families, including a grandmother who lives with her same-sex partner of nine years and is the only relative able and willing to adopt her grandchild, who is now in Arkansas state care.  Read More

From Associated Press: ACLU of Arkansas Sue Over Adoption Restrictions, 12/30/2008.

Book Review: We Belong Together by Todd Parr

Title: We Belong Together: A Book About Adoption and Families

Author: Todd Parr

Todd Parr lends his distinctive picture book style to adoption in his latest book. Every two or three pages, Parr writes “We belong together because …” and then fills in the blank in different heartfelt – and sometimes whimsical – ways. The pictures show families of all different kinds (including same-gender and different color), and in a rare Author’s Note at the beginning, Parr encourages parents to change the pronouns in the text to fit their family. Read More

Cross posted from Book Dads

Afternoon Chuckle

I never know what to expect when surfing around YouTube, sometimes you really wish you hadn’t clicked on a particular video and other times you can’t help but smile.

Gay Adoption Supported By New Study

An article in the Chicago Tribune today discusses a new study supporting gay adoption.  The report released this month by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute is titled, Expanding Resources For Waiting Children II: Eliminating Legal & Practice Barriers To Gay & Lesbian Adoption From Foster Care.  The report examines the impacts that bans on adoptions by gay men & lesbians would have on the foster care system.  The study concludes that:

Gays and lesbians are an important resource for children awaiting adoption. There is near “universal professional consensus” that these applicants should be judged on their qualifications, not sexual orientation.

Read the full report on the study here.

Florida’s gay adoption ban ruled unconstitutional

The Miami Herald reports that:

A Monroe Circuit Court judge has ruled Florida’s 31-year-old gay adoption ban ”unconstitutional” in an order that allows an openly gay Key West foster parent to adopt a teenage boy he has raised since 2001.

Declaring the adoption to be in the boy’s ”best interest,” Circuit Judge David J. Audlin Jr. said the Florida law forbidding gay people from adopting children is contrary to the state Constitution because it singles out a group for punishment.

Florida is one of only two states — the other is Mississippi — that forbids gay people from adopting.

Read the rest of the article here.