Mombian put out a call for June 1 as "Blog About LGBT Families Day," so here’s my contribution. (Which seems funny to me. Ok, yes, this blog also used to have book reviews, but nearly every day is Blog About LGBT Families Day here at Casa Booski.)
To prove it, here’s the gratuitous picture of Noah for today: 
But what this entry is really about, is about the whole family, not just Noah.
I’ve just read a fantastic article on the state of the law governing our children: "The Legal Parentage of Children Born to Same-Sex Couples: Developments in the Law" by Courtney Joslin of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. It talks a lot about what we can learn from and use from case law that was developed in the context of heterosexual couples who have children using assisted reproduction, as most of us do.
This was published in the American Bar Association’s Family Law Quarterly — a big deal, because that means that thousands of attorneys who practice family law, all over the US, have at least scanned the title of this article and know that this area of the law is developing.
Joslin is also active within the ABA’s Family Law Section, which includes most of the leading attorneys practicing in that area, and their Section on Individual Rights & Responsibilities, which is where all the cool lawyers hang out in the ABA, regardless of what their day jobs are. We are all more visible because of her work.
I emailed her to see if the article was available online anywhere. Unfortunately, the Family Law Quarterly only posts abstracts of its articles, and even that page hasn’t been updated since 2004.
Can any of you brilliant librarians find an online abstract? The full citation is Courtney G. Joslin, The Legal Parentage of Children Born to Same-Sex Couples: Developments in the Law, 39 Family Law Quarterly 683 (2005).
Another thing Joslin mentioned is that NCLR can help people find local attorneys who are familiar with developments in the law of your state, and to help you adopt if you are lucky enough to live in one of the 10 states where there is an appellate court decision or a statute permitting second-parent adoption to same sex couples — so the bioparent doesn’t have to give up her parental rights at any point — or in one of the other 15 states where second-parend adoptions are available in at least some counties.
BTW, those ten states, according to Joslin’s article, are: California, Connecticut, DC (ok, technically not a state), Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.
Joslin doesn’t list the other 15 states, but cites an older article by sexy-voiced legal goddess Jane Schacter (that’s for you, Levi’s Mom!), Constructing Families in a Democracy: Courts, Legislatures and Second-Parent Adoptions, 75 Chi.Kent L.Rev 933, 934(2000), which in turn cites an ACLU fact sheet that I can’t find. I’m such a wannabe. If I were a real librarian, I’d track it down for you, but instead, I’m going to sleep.
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