Texas

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:

A Bay Area woman has won the right to parental status and visits with the daughter of her former lesbian partner - who moved away when their daughter was 3-months old.

Charisma R., had been fully involved in conceiving and taking care of the child and was legally the child's co-parent. The ruling also allows her to argue for reimbursement of the costs of traveling to Texas, where her ex-partner lives with their now 6-year-old daughter.

City Controller - and lesbian mom - Annise Parker made history Saturday by being elected Houston's first openly gay mayor, earning 53.6 percent of the vote in a tight race.

Parker and her partner, Kathy Hubbard, have been together since 1990. They have two adopted children.

Kristie Vowels and Tracy Scourfield had been a couple for more than four years and had gone through counseling to help them decide whether to have a child together. Scourfield gave birth to their daughter, conceived through IVF, on May 21, 2004.

A little more than a year later, the two women broke up and Scourfield and the little girl moved out of Vowels’ home - although Vowels’ continued to help support the child financially. The women agreed to and operated on a visitation schedule very similar to what is considered “standard visitation” in a heterosexual custody case.

Our friends over at QUEERTY offer direction to Texas teachers, forced to implement Bible study into their classrooms. How about including fact-or-fiction on the syllabus?

On Mother’s Day, Jay Bakker [pictured], son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, brought a group of LGBT families to worship at Lakewood Church, in Texas - the largest mega-church in the U.S. After the service, Bakker met privately with Lakewood’s pastor, Joel Osteen, to talk about faith, family, and LGBT people.

After the meeting, Bakker released the following statement:

A lesbian couple in Galveston, Texas whose eight-year relationship ended is in a legal battle over whether the woman who adopted the child born to her partner should be recognized as the girl's parent. Because there is no law in Texas on second parent adoptions, the adoption is vulnerable.