Carlos Santoscoy | On Top Magazine | February 25, 2015
Less than two weeks after a lesbian couple won the right to have their marriage recognized in Alabama, Mobile County’s probate judge has refused to process the couple’s adoption petition.
Cari Searcy and Kimberly McKeand, together over 15 years, exchanged vows in California in 2008.
In 2005, McKeand gave birth to the couple’s son, K.S.
Farrah Tomazin | The Age | February 21, 2015
Same-sex couples in Victoria could get equal adoption rights within months, bringing the state into line with other jurisdictions and ending years of discrimination for many families.
The Andrews government has commissioned former chief parliamentary counsel Eamonn Moran, QC, to conduct a review of Victoria’s adoption laws, with proposed changes likely to be introduced into Parliament by the middle of the year.
At present, gay couples in Victoria can be appointed as foster parents or guardians, but do not have the right to adopt a child together – even if that child has been in their care for years.
On Top Magazine | January 14, 2015
Austria’s highest court has declared invalid a ban on gay couples jointly adopting.
Gerhart Holzinger, president of the Austrian Constitutional Court, announced the decision on Wednesday.
There was “no factual justification for having different rules based on sexual orientation that rule out the adoption of children by those in a civil partnership,” the court is quoted as saying by the AFP.
Farrah Tomazin | The Age | December 7, 2014
Tackling inequalities: Martin Foley’s appointment marks the first time an Australian government has ever had a dedicated Minister for equality overseeing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex issues. Photo: Chris Hopkins
Gay couples will be allowed to adopt children in Victoria and religious organisations will find it harder to discriminate against employees based on their sexuality, under changes to be made by Australia’s first minister for equality.
Hours after being sworn in as part of the new Andrews government, Equality Minister Martin Foley promised to waste no time amending state adoption laws in order bring Victoria into line with NSW, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.
At present, gay couples in Victoria can be appointed as foster parents or guardians, but do not have the right to adopt a child together – even if that child has been in their care for years.
Miki Perkins | Essential Baby | October 27, 2014
Family: Same-sex couple Steven Aney and Brendan Wagner (back from left) pose for a photo at home with their foster children, Jayden (left front) and Shannon. Photo: Jesse Marlow
At every Midsumma festival or Pride March there are stalls dedicated to promoting foster care to gay and lesbian families.
Welfare agency Berry Street – which gets funding from the state government – is just one organisation that pitches a tent to hand out brochures and encourage gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (GLBTI) people to consider becoming foster parents.
Yet unlike heterosexual people, GLBTI foster parents are not allowed to adopt their foster children, even if they have legally become their permanent carers and looked after them for many years.
PAUL SCHINDLER | Gay City News | January 6, 2014
Pope Francis, recently named as the Advocate’s Person of the Year, was “shocked” at the thought of gay and lesbian couples adopting children, according to Bishop Charles Scicluna of Malta.
The Daily Telegraph of London reported that Scicluna, in an interview with the Times of Malta, said, “We discussed many aspects… and when I raised the issue that’s worrying me as a bishop [the right of same-sex couples to adopt] he encouraged me to speak out.” Francis, the bishop told the newspaper, was “shocked” to learn that a civil union bill under consideration in Malta would allow same-sex couples the right to adopt children.
Stickered with a symbol of support for marriage equality, even though he opposes it, Pope Francis was named the Advocate’s Person of the Year. | THEADVOCATE.COM
The Telegraph noted that, as Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Francis had opposed adoption by same-sex couples and called gay marriage “the devil’s attack on God’s plan.” At the time Argentina was debating its marriage equality law, Bergoglio urged his fellow bishops to support a civil union alternative, a choice some of the other bishops found unpalatable.
English: THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. Vladimir Putin and leaders of parliamentary parties in the Russian State Duma. Русский: МОСКВА, КРЕМЛЬ. Встреча с лидерами депутатских фракций Государственной Думы. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Lester Brathwaite | Queerty | September 5, 2013
A Russian lawmaker, not satisfied with denying gay people their rights, also wants to deny them their children.
Deputy of the Russian State Duma — the lower house of parliament — and noted shithead Alexei Zhuravlyov has proposed amendments to the Family Code that will make “non-traditional sexual orientation” a basis for denying custody of children; other grounds include alcoholism, drug use and a history of violence, insanity and abuse.
“In the case when a parent has sexual contact with people of their own gender, the damage that can be inflicted on the psyche of a child is enormous,” Zhuravlyov, the author of the bill, wrote in his proposal to the Duma.
Andrew Potts | Gay Star News | June 27, 2013
LGBT rights advocates in the Australian state of Tasmania have welcomed the passage of a law allowing same-sex couples to adopt.
Since 2003 gays and lesbians in Tasmania could adopt their partner’s children but the new law now allows same-sex couples without biological children of their own to adopt children.
‘This reform is in the best interests of children because it will allow a child currently being fostered by a same-sex couple to be adopted by their foster parents when it is in that child’s best interest,’ Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group (TGLR) spokesperson Rodney Croome, said.
E. Winter Tashlin | Bilerico | June 14, 2013
Reddit user /u/demichka recently posted a link to a Russian language article in which Elena Mizulina, head of the State Duma’s Committee on Family, Women and Children appears to advocate for the removal of children from same-sex families, having this to say (according to google translate at least): 
The proposed amendment to Article 127 of the Family Code, which provides for those who may be an adoptive parent, and who can not. In particular, consider that opportunity: to create a legal basis for the removal of a child from the family, based on the actual marriage of people of the same sex.
…If such a clause will, then the restriction of adoptions, including removal of the child from the family, when it turns out that the family created by persons of the same sex would be legally possible.
In light of the fact that the State Duma just unanimously voted in favor of an anti-LGBT bill of downright Soviet proportions, the possibility that Russian children who have been adopted by same-sex families could be ripped from their homes is terrifyingly real. And anyone who imagines the injustice would stop at adopted children are deluding themselves.
Joseph Patrick McCormick | PinkNews.co.uk | June 5, 2013
The Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament, could move to approve an amendment which would ban the adoption of Russian children by foreign same-sex couples, by early July.
Yelena Mizulina, a member of the A Just Russia party, who heads the Duma’s committee on Family, Women and Children, said it had discussed an amendment on Tuesday of this week, and could be voted on before summer recess begins on 6 July.
The amendment would ban the adoption of Russian children by foreign citizens, people without citizenship and Russian nationals permanently living abroad, if they are in a same-sex marriage.
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