Bring Light: Protect the Rights of Families with Children

PROJECT

Protect the Rights of Families with Children

Lambda Legal

There are roughly 250,000 children in the United States being raised by
same-sex couples. But the rights of gay and lesbian parents vary widely among states. Only about half of all states permit second-parent adoptions by the unmarried partner of an existing legal parent, and in other states, the courts have ruled against such adoptions. In many cases, state courts have terminated the parenting rights of mothers and fathers simply because they are lesbian or gay. This leaves tens of thousands of children without legal ties to the parents who love them and want raise and protect them. This project will help fund Lambda Legal's broad-based civil rights efforts to ensure all families and children are treated equally.

Number of Donations: 16 | Posted over 4 years ago


	Donate

11% Raised

Target: $5,000.00
Raised so far: $555.00

The Charity

Lambda Legal

Making the Case For Equality

Bring Light Activity

30 Donors

5 Projects since May, 2007

4 Active Projects since June, 2007

Charity Info

Based in: New York, New York

Year founded: 1973

More Info »

Project Info

Lambda Legal's victories to secure the legal ties between parents and children have a profound impact on the emotional and economic stability of affected families. This project will help Lambda Legal continue its broad-based civil rights efforts to advocate through the courts and through public education that LGBT and HIV-positive parents must be treated equally under the law and that the best interests of children must always be observed.

Examples of cases where Lambda Legal protected the Parenting Rights of Couples include:

-> Lambda Legal successfully challenged the Oklahoma Adoption Invalidation Law, a law so extreme that it left children adopted by same-sex couples in other states orphans in the eyes of the law when their families moved to or traveled through Oklahoma. A U.S. district court found that the statute indeed violated the Constitution by singling out a specific group for discrimination. In the 2006 decision, the court wrote, "The very fact that the adoptions have occurred is evidence that a court of law has found the adoptions to be in the best interests of the children... To now attempt to strip a child of one of his or her parents seems far removed from the statute's purpose and therefore from Defendants' asserted important government objective." (For more information visit http://www.lambdalegal.org/news/pr/federal-court-strikes-down.html)

-> Lambda Legal won on behalf of Therese Fairchild in her fight to enforce a court-approved joint custody agreement between her and her former partner, Denise Fairchild. After their son was born in 1996, both women parented him. To ensure that Therese had a protected legal relationship with the child, the two women signed the joint custody agreement in 2001. That same year the Ohio Supreme Court had expressly approved joint custody agreements in another case.

After the couple split up, Denise Fairchild refused Therese contact with their son and tried to use the state’s constitutional amendment banning marriage between same-sex couples, which passed in November 2004, to argue that the custody agreement was invalid. In January 2007, in a 12-page decision, the court ruled that a custody arrangement between two parents of the same sex is valid despite Ohio's antigay constitutional amendment. (For more information visit http://www.lambdalegal.org/news/pr/ohio-court-says-custody.html)

-> In a Georgia Court of Appeals ruling, Lambda Legal helped ensure that a parent's custody or visitation rights cannot be limited just because that parent is gay or lesbian and lives with their partner, when there is no adverse effect on the child. Victoria Moses and Kelvin King had a daughter together. After the couple split, primary custody of the child was awarded to Moses. After Moses' partner moved into her home, King sued to change custody. A lower court did so, but as the mother's relationship had no adverse effect on the child, the Court of Appeals reversed the lower court and said that the mother's custody rights should never have been changed. (For more information see http://www.lambdalegal.org/news/pr/georgia-court-of-appeals-says.html)

Dozens of similar cases come into the Lambda Legal Help Desk around the nation each month. This project will ensure Lambda Legal has the resources to continue its high-impact litigation work.