Articles - Legal & Financial

A Pulaski County circuit judge has overturned Arkansas’ law banning unmarried couples living together from adopting or fostering children.

Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said Initiated Act One, passed by voters in 2008, constituted an unwarranted invasion of privacy. The law effectively banned gays from adopting or fostering children because they are unable to legally marry in Arkansas.

From Arkansas Online:

Two Texas moms got married in Massachusetts but separated in 2007. They worked out a custody arrangement for their 4 1/2-year old adopted son - but the state of Texas says a same-sex marriage can't be dissolved with a divorce there because Texas doesn't offer marriage equality.

The Associated Press reports:

Michigan's Wayne County Circuit Judge Kathleen McCarthy ruled that Renee Harmon’s [right] request for parenting time with her ex-partner of 19 years, Tammy Davis [left], can proceed to an evidentiary hearing to determine if they had an agreement to share custody of the children. During the relationship, Davis had three children through artificial insemination. Harmon said she cut the children’s umbilical cords, helped raise them and, in all respects, was a parent.

From Freep.com:

Obama has ordered most hospitals in the country to grant the same visitation rights to gay and lesbian partners that they do to married heterosexual couples.

In a memo to his Health and Human Services agency, the President wrote, "...uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans, who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives."