The ruling recognizes Michelle Kulstad as a parent to the two children she raised together with Barbara Maniaci, granting Kulstad time with her children and ordering that she and Kulstad have joint decision-making authority for matters significantly affecting the children, including their “education, activities, health care and spiritual upbringing.”

Kulstad and Maniaci, both from the Missoula area, ended their relationship in 2006. Maniaci, as the “legally adoptive” parent, claimed that Kulstad had no custodial rights to their children, that she should not be granted visitation rights, and that she was a “legal stranger” to the children.

The court rejected those arguments and ruled that it was in the best interest of the children for their parent-child relationship with Kulstad to continue, finding that Kulstad was a parent to the children and that the children had a constitutional right to have that relationship continue.

“To discriminate further against Ms. Kulstad because of her sexual preference in this day and age is no different than telling a person to go to the back of the bus because of her skin color,” District Judge Ed McLean wrote.

McLean noted in his 48-page ruling that Kulstad provided for the children and raised them with Maniaci, and the children recognized her as a parent.

The ruling said, “. . . the evidence shows that rupture of the children’s relationship with Ms. Kulstad would be not only contrary to their best interests, but severely detrimental to their well-being.”

A court appointed psychologist who conducted an evaluation of the women’s parenting abilities testified that the children have an important attachment to both Kulstad and Maniaci.

The psychologist cited American Psychological Association studies showing there are no significant differences  between children raised by same-sex parents and those raised by heterosexual parents.

Maniaci, who said she is no longer gay and is married argued through her lawyer that she is a “fit, natural parent,” and that she is being “prevented from raising her children with her husband in the way they see fit.”

McLean’s ruling disputes that assertion.

“By acknowledging Kulstad as a parent, the court today recognized that it would be both cruel and against established Montana law for her children to be denied the parental love and support Kulstad has shown them since they entered her home,” said Kulstad’s attorney Susan Ridgeway.

The decision is a victory for the rights of Montana families and the best interests of Montana children, said Betsy Griffing, ACLU of Montana Legal Director.

The conservative Alliance Defend Fund which represented Maniaci has not said if it will appeal.

Eric Hyett fled New York with 23-month old Jedidiah earlier this month, during a long custody fight with Joshua Glazer.

Hyett claimed that Glazer had ignored offers to settle for a year, but Glazer, in an interview with the New York Daily News said that Hyett is the problem, calling him “manipulative.”

The two men were married in Massachusetts four years ago and lived in New York City.  They separated last year.

Jedidiah was adopted shortly after birth, when the boy’s mother, a friend of the couple’s, gave him up.

Glazer said the marriage failed after Jedidiah was adopted because “Eric became extremely jealous of the time I was spending with our baby.”

After the couple separated, a court awarded Glazer primary custody and Hyett visitation rights.

Under the court terms, Hyett was allowed to see the boy every weekend.

This month, Hyett asked to keep the boy two extra days so that he could take Jedidiah to Boston to visit his grandparents and Glazer agreed.

It was the last time Glazer saw the boy until Thursday, when Jerusalem police found the boy and reunited him with Glazer.

“It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world to have him back,” Glazer told the Post by phone from Israel. “I was really so happy to see he was OK and well. He was a little dirty and hadn’t been bathed, but none of that mattered.”

Authorities in Israel say they are looking at international law before deciding whether to arrest Hyett and return him to New York to face charges of custodial interference.

Police in New York say they believe it to be the first abduction case in New York City in memory involving a married gay couple.

The “Gay Neighbor” campaign will feature LGBT families drawn from the Milwaukee area and was unveiled this week at a news conference. It begins Monday.

The ads, from the Cream City Foundation, all bear the slogan ” Family. It’s all about LOVE!” and direct people to a Web site that offers more information on the issues facing same-sex couples and their children.

In 2006, Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Since then LGBT activist groups have been focusing on efforts to get bills granting recognition of domestic partnerships passed in the legislature.

Marketing expert Denise Crawley said the photos used in the campaign were selected following intensive focus groups.

“We tried single people, we tried couples by themselves. None of those sorts of images worked as well as presenting people in the sense of family,” Crawley told Milwaukee Public Radio.

The ads feature with young children and teens pictured with their gay and lesbian parents, and LGBT kids with their mothers and fathers.

“We also heard from people that they thought that gay people don’t have families, certainly thought they don’t have children. Don’t even think to ask about a significant other, about their mother, about their sister,” Crawley said.

Several of the families represented in the campaign were present at the news conference, but were identified only by their first names.

One of the couples, Kristie and Karen, said that it was difficult to decide whether to expose their children in the ads.

“The last thing a parent wants to do is to put their child in harms way and, while I don’t feel like we’re necessarily doing that, it’s a little nerve-wracking. And there were days I did feel sick to my stomach about it and we talked about that a lot. But, we felt like the cause was worthwhile and we need to do it,” Karen said

“My true feeling was, I came back to the code, you have to be a part of the change you want to see in the world and there was no other way to do it. And I think our families and our kids know, that it’s a worthwhile cause.”

Crawley said that in addition to educating the straight population, she hopes the ads encourage more gay people to come out.

“The fact that there are still hate crimes and there are still unfair laws, there are so many people who are still closeted,” she said.

“There are plenty of people who still have people come into their homes and have dinner parties and people don’t know that they’re gay. And we’re not going to be able to make inroads into more fair laws and opportunities if more people don’t realize how many gay neighbors they have.”

The foundation did not say how much it cost to produce the ads, but noted that it received funding from the Joseph R. Pabst LGBT Infrastructure Fund and that Clear Channel had donated a large number of billboards.

However, since the number collected fell within the state “grace” guideline, the group has another 30 days to get the additional signatures.

The Arkansas Family Council Action Committee needs 61,974 of the signatures to have the issued placed before voters.

Secretary of State Charlie Daniels’ office certified that 57,888 of the signatures the group submitted in were valid. 

Family Council Executive Director Jerry Cox said he expects to reach the goal.

“In fact, we’ve already been gathering signatures, which is permitted under the law, while they’ve been reviewing them,” Cox told The Arkansas News Bureau.

LGBT rights group Arkansas Families First said it intends to fight the initiative.

The adoption referendum is similar to a bill that died in the Arkansas legislature earlier this year. That legislation failed after Gov. Mike Beebe suggested that there were constitutional problems with the bill, although he would not say if he intended to veto it if it were passed.

Arkansas’s Child Welfare Agency Review Board established a policy in 1999 that banned gay people from serving as foster parents, but the Arkansas Supreme Court struck it down after a seven-year legal battle.  The court declared unanimously that “the driving force behind adoption of the regulations was not to promote the health, safety and welfare of foster children but rather based upon the board’s views of morality and its bias against homosexuals.”

The Arkansas Family Council was largely responsible for the passage of an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution banning gay marriage.

Dwight Clark Ables told police last week that his father yelled, swung the bat and tried to “cast the demon of homosexuality out of him.” 

He claimed his 49-year-old father prayed as he swung the bat and then threw him out of the house. He also said that several days later, when the teen returned home to pick up his clothes, he was punched.

In the report he filed with police, the teen said that his father “has a problem with him being gay and that is why he hit him with the baseball bat.”

Investigators said Thursday they had found no evidence to support any of the allegations.

Ables is being held in a detention center awaiting trial.