Adoption and Parenting

55 Statewide and Local Organizations Unite to Sponsor 10 Town Meetings Across the State:

"Supporting All Roads to Justice: Marriage Equality in the Courts, Domestic Partnership in the Legislature."

The 10 town meetings, twice a month from January through May 2003, begin tonight, Monday night, January 13th in Morristown

Organizing series sponsors include Lambda Legal, the ACLU of New Jersey and the National Organization for Women-New Jersey

(San Diego, February 7, 2003) - A state appeals court will hear arguments Monday in the case of a San Diego woman whose health care providers refused medical treatment to her because she is a lesbian. Lambda Legal is asking the court to overturn a ruling from last year that said Guadalupe Benitez’s health care providers acted lawfully when, citing doctors’ personal religious beliefs about gay people, they refused to provide infertility treatment to her so she and her life partner could start a family.

(San Diego, March 4, 2003) - In the first ruling of its kind in the nation, a California appeals court today said health care providers cannot discriminate against patients based on their sexual orientation. Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which fought on behalf of a lesbian who was denied insemination services by her Southern California health care providers, said the decision will impact lesbians and gay men throughout California and nationwide.

(ATLANTA, October 9, 2001) — Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund announced Tuesday that it has filed a brief in support of a lesbian mother’s challenge to a Georgia court’s order barring her from visiting her three sons while living with her partner.

(NEW YORK, September 27, 2001) — Top national and local children’s rights organizations are among a dozen legal and mental health groups urging Nebraska’s highest court to consider a toddler’s best interests and allow one of his lesbian mothers to also be a legal parent, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Thursday.

(NEW YORK, September 6, 2001) -- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is urging Pennsylvania's highest court to affirm a ruling that a lesbian mother who raised a child with her former partner for three years from birth may seek visitation with her daughter despite the biological mother's objection.

(LOS ANGELES, July 10, 2001) — A California child visitation dispute between a mother and her child’s paternal grandparents does not involve lesbian or gay parents, but it still has important implications for their families, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Tuesday.

(ATLANTA, May 2, 2001) — Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Wednesday that the Tennessee Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in favor of a lesbian mother increases protections for gay parents who live with their partners and have full or partial custody of their children.

Lambda filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, explaining to the court that all available evidence proves a parent’s sexual orientation is irrelevant to children’s well-being and that children do not need to be shielded from their parents’ committed relationships.

(ATLANTA, March 19, 2003)- A Mississippi judge today ordered the state to issue a birth certificate for a 5-year-old boy who was born in Mississippi and adopted by a lesbian couple from another state. Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund filed a lawsuit against the state in 2001 for refusing to issue a birth certificate listing the child’s two parents, leaving him without any legal documentation of his name, the names of his parents or the date and place of his birth

(CHICAGO, April 16, 2001) — A three-day speak out in key Iowa cities will raise questions about anti-gay discrimination in employment, Boy Scouts, and adoption by lesbian and gay parents.

Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund’s Midwest Regional Director Matthew W. Roberts will address these and more concerns with “Isn’t That Against the Law?,” an interactive forum on civil rights law for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (lgbt) and HIV-related communities.