“Even though it’s difficult and society puts lots of obstacles in your way, your work really starts once you have the kids.”

IHI, which specializes in affirmative mental health services for the LGBTQ community and other stigmatized groups, has just begun its second year of “Family Q” workshops for LGBTQ parents and prospective parents. The organization received a five-year grant from the New York State Department of Health to offer the program at no charge, including free follow-up counseling if desired. They hope attendees will come away better able to handle the emotional part of being LGBTQ parents.

Dr. Ehrenberg says many LGBTQ parents and prospective parents “don’t have enough questions” about parenting. They ask about practical issues such as how to conceive, find a surrogate, or adopt, she explains, “but they don’t stop to consider the emotional ramifications.” Similarly, many seminars elsewhere for LGBTQ parents focus on the mechanics and legal issues rather than the psychological aspects of parenthood.

Dr. Ehrenberg feels IHI is in an ideal position to address the psychological side. The organization has trained hundreds of psychotherapists about LGBTQ issues. Its founder, Dr. Charles Silverstein, helped lead the charge in 1973 to have the American Psychiatric Association remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. He established IHI as a not-for-profit therapy center soon thereafter.

“We have tried to construct workshops based on our own experiences and those of our clients who come to us for therapy,” Dr. Ehrenberg explains, “and our knowledge of general issues of child and adolescent development.”

The workshops, which will run on the third Wednesday of every month from October 2009 through May 2010, will address topics such as answering children’s queries about sperm donors or birth parents, coming out of the closet after having children, and how to talk about sex when children begin to ask the inevitable questions.

Most straight parents, Dr. Ehrenberg observes, either don’t have to deal with these questions or can refer to any number of books that explain to children where they came from.

Family Q sessions will also cover some of the negative situations LGBTQ parents may encounter, including harassment at school, rejection by neighbors or relatives, and breaking up when parents don’t have equal legal or biological claims to the children.

The presenters are all mental health professionals with extensive clinical backgrounds. They are also, importantly, all LGBTQ parents who have lived through many of the above experiences themselves.

Developmental psychologist Dr. Elizabeth O’Connor says her March workshop, “What Will the Neighbors Think?” will explore what she feels is the most common concern gay and lesbian parents have when they’re thinking about raising children: are the kids going to get harassed or ostracized because of their parents?

She says there is no guarantee this won’t happen, but adds, “There’s no guarantee they won’t get teased about wearing glasses or losing the baseball game or anything else.”

Also, she says, research has shown that even though children of LGBTQ parents may hear some unkind remarks, “generally speaking, kids [of LGBTQ parents] report they don’t get teased any more than other kids do, that it’s not this huge problem for most of our kids. That’s kind of a relief for parents to hear.”

O’Connor and her partner, Dr. Suzanne M. Johnson, another developmental psychologist and Family Q presenter, are the authors of For Lesbian Parents: Your Guide to Helping Your Family Grow Up Happy, Healthy and Proud and The Gay Baby Boom: The Psychology of Gay Parenthood. O’Connor says, however, that workshop attendees will get something they cannot get from reading books. “I think it’s very helpful just to sit in a room with other people who are going through the same thing that you are,” she explains. “Even if you don’t see these people again, just knowing that they’re out there, that you’re part of a community, I think is a real benefit to parents.”

Practicing psychologist Dr. Adam Benson, who will be conducting the December workshop, “Heather Has Two Daddies” with his partner Graham Parker, wants to reach out to the community of gay fathers. He says many gay dads still struggle with gender stereotypes about what it means to be a father.

“In one of the studies that I completed,” he says, “the gay fathers that had children [through an opposite-sex marriage] would often say that they allowed their spouse to have full custody simply because they thought that the best place for a child is with their mother.”

In his workshop, he hopes to challenge the idea that an involved male parent is simply playing “Mr. Mom,” which still implies that the female parenting role is the touchstone. “Very often, if we’re not aware how the gender stereotypes play a role in what we say or how we act with our children,” he explains, “we’re less likely to be as present as we can with them.”

Michael, a dad who attended several of last year’s workshops, says he plans to return. Last year, he was just coming out to his then-wife and two children. (He asked that his last name not be used so that his teens may control when to come out about their father to friends.) He says he appreciated not only the guidance from professionals, but also the help from other participants, many of whom were already out but not yet parents.

“It’s not the parenting part for me,” he told them, “it’s the gay stuff.” He gave others advice on parenting issues, and in turn learned from them about coming out and being gay. “It was a positive experience for me as a gay man and a parent,” he reflects. “I feel like going back and reporting on how it went.”

Dr. Ehrenberg says she would like even more parents and prospective parents to have the chance to benefit from Family Q. She hopes to continue the program even beyond the five-year grant, and perhaps expand it nationwide, starting with other cities such as Boston and San Francisco.

She expects it will evolve to include additional topics as well, and asserts, “We are ready, willing, and eager to add new workshops as the ideas come out, and as we’re stimulated to do so.”

For a complete list of Family Q workshops, or to make a reservation for any workshop, visit the IHI Web site or contact them at ihi-lgbt@juno.com or 212-243-2830.

Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian, a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents.

The 41-year-old Newson and 34-year-old Siebel Newsom will celebrate their second wedding anniversary in July.

Newsom, who is in his second term as mayor, has been raising money and traveling the state in anticipation of running next year to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor.

Newsom gained national attention in 2004 when he began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Some 8,000 couples exchanged vows before the state Supreme Court ruled Newsom had acted illegally.

The court nullified the marriages but said its ruling dealt only with Newsom’s actions.  The justices said at the time the question of whether barring same-sex couples from marrying violated the state’s equal protection clause of its constitution was a separate matter.

Legal challenges on the constitutional question were begun almost immediately. Three separate suits ultimately were wrapped together into a single case.

In March 2005, a Superior Court judge in San Francisco ruled that the law denying same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The ruling was upheld by the California Supreme Court in May 2008 and same-sex couples began exchanging vows again.

Opponents of gay marriage immediately began gathering signatures for a ballot measure to ban gay marriage. Last November the measure, known as Proposition 8, passed with a slim majority.

By that time, some 18,000 same-sex marriages had taken place.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the vote.  They were joined by additional suits by the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on March 5.

Fayette Circuit Judge Paul Blake originally agreed to allow Kathyrn Kutil and Cheryl Hess to be foster parents for the infant girl, following a positive assessment by the Department of Health and Human Resources.

Court records show that the little girl was born to a drug addicted mother and the baby had had cocaine, opiates and benzodiazepines in her system. Shortly after birth the baby went through drug withdrawal. The father was unknown.

The Department placed the child with Kutil and Hess, who had been approved as foster parents, when it could not find any blood relatives of the mother.

But nearly a year later when the couple applied to adopt the little girl both the Department and Judge Blake balked.  In his ruling Blake ordered the child removed saying the baby should be permanently placed in a home where the parents would be a married opposite-sex couple.

The ruling said that he had agreed to allow the women to foster the child because it was the best option at the time. But he never intended it to be permanent.

"I think I’ve indicated time and time again, this court’s opinion is that the best interest of a child is to be raised by a traditional family, mother and father," Blake’s ruling said. 

"Now, that’s this court’s opinion as to what a typical West Virginian would feel and what the typical attitude is of the West Virginia Supreme Court, a traditional family."

In their appeal to the state, Supreme Court the women argue that Blake exceeded his authority and violated their constitutional rights. The appeal argues that Blake is "setting a dangerous precedent" for discriminatory treatment of non-traditional families.

A different judge recently approved Kutil’s adoption of a 12-year-old girl whom she’d been fostering for over two years, the appeal notes.

West Virginia law allows either single individuals or married couples to adopt. It says nothing about same-sex couples.

In a 4-1 vote the high court agreed to take the case.  Oral arguments will be held on March 11.

The court had granted an emergency stay of Judge Blake’s order. The little girl will be allowed to stay with the women until the Supreme Court rules.

Coverage of this decision has, however, largely overlooked an important point: the boys in fact have two committed, loving parents in their home, only one of whom is now legal. Gill has been fostering the four- and eight-year-old boys with his partner of eight years, whom the court documents call Tom Roe, Sr. Roe’s biological son (now 13 years old) was already in their home. According to the court ruling:

“John and James refer to Petitioner and Roe as ‘papi’ and ‘daddy’ respectively. . . . John and James are closely bonded to Tom Roe, Jr., and their extended family. The boys consider Petitioner and Roe’s parents, brothers and sisters their grandparents, uncles and aunts. The extended family sends the boys gifts for their birthdays and the holidays. Roe’s mother, who lives in Tampa, visits the family regularly.”

The two men decided to pursue an adoption of the foster children only for Gill, though, figuring it would be even harder to get a ruling in favor of a joint adoption by two men. The men plan to try for a second-parent adoption at a later date. (It is unclear if Roe’s biological son has another legal parent, or if Gill would pursue a second-parent adoption of him as well.)

Progress is often incremental, of course. Pursuing a single adoption was most likely the right strategic move. What this case reveals, however, are the many layers of restrictions that still bind LGBT citizens. For every bit of progress, there is more to be made.

Some might argue that if the two men were married, they could have jointly adopted the boys. That may be true, but we must be careful not to extend this thinking too far. Marriage equality is not always the solution to securing same-sex parenting rights.

It is easy to blur the lines between parental rights and marriage, however. Sex and the City actor Cynthia Nixon fell into this trap two weeks ago on Larry King Live (11/14/08) when she spoke out in favor of marriage equality.

Nixon, who has two children from a previous, opposite-sex relationship, said that if she got hit by a truck, her partner Christine Marinoni would have no legal rights to the children, even though she (Marinoni) is currently their stay-at-home mom. Nixon claimed that if she and Marinoni were married, Marinoni would have legal rights as their stepparent.

The fact is, though, that Nixon and the children’s biological father are the legal parents. Even for a married, opposite-sex couple, the stepparent would have no legal rights unless the non-custodial biological parent had given up his rights and allowed the stepparent to adopt the children. Nixon, her ex, and Marinoni could do this even now.

Nixon and Marinoni’s marriage alone would not give Marinoni any legal standing in relation to the children if Nixon died.

Note, too, that Nixon and her male ex never married–but he is still recognized as a  parent. (Thanks to LGBT family law expert Nancy Polikoff for confirming my analysis here.)

At the moment, too, marriage is not sufficient to provide widespread recognition to both same-sex parents in many places. If a married or civil unioned same-sex couple has a child in a state where their relationship is recognized, both members of the couple can be listed as parents on the birth certificate. States that do not recognize the adults’ relationship might not honor that birth certificate, however. LGBT legal organizations such as GLAD thus recommend that even married same-sex parents do a second-parent adoption or get a court order of parentage, which all jurisdictions should recognize.

Broader recognition of same-sex marriages (or civil unions equivalent in all but name) would alleviate this problem. Still, opposite-sex parents are not required to marry in order to gain parental rights. It seems unfair to require same-sex parents to do the same. Canada, which allows same-sex couples to marry, but also gives common-law partners almost identical rights as married couples, might be on the right track here, as Polikoff points out.

Many besides Nixon have argued for marriage equality because of the parenting rights it conveys. This connection is true only in a subset of cases, as we have seen. At other times marriage is neither necessary nor sufficient. It may be desired for other reasons, though, not least of which is to give one’s children a sense of equality.

Marriage rights are important, therefore, but they are not a panacea.

We need to keep reminding ourselves, our allies, and the public that there is more to LGBT rights than that, a message that risks being lost in all the post-election hoopla about the marriage props. The fact that we scored a win for parental rights last week in a state that just passed an anti-marriage amendment should remind us, too, that in many places we will gain parental rights first. (I won’t even get into hate crimes and employment discrimination here.)

We do not know, of course, whether the Florida ruling will stand up to appeal, or if Tom Roe will ever be a legal parent to his sons. If it does stand, it would still remain to be seen whether the increasing number of same-sex parents and their children would shift public opinion on marriage equality. Not right away, perhaps; but I’d like to think it would be a start.

Marriage equality and parenting rights may not be identical, but they will each help the other succeed.

Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian, a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents. She is not a lawyer, and nothing in the above article should be taken as legal advice. Her column exploring the intersection of politics and parenting appears every other Thursday at 365gay.com.

Many LGBT parents, I suspect, are facing similar choices as the community erupts over Prop 8 and the other anti-LGBT measures of the past election. Our children’s immediate needs may often win out, especially when we know there are thousands of others within the LGBT community who will be rallying anyway.

We would be remiss, however, to think that the fight for LGBT rights will succeed without the visibility and participation of LGBT parents. One major mistake the No On 8 campaign made was to eliminate LGBT parents from its ads, when the other side focused squarely on children and schools. No On 8 chose to reach out to straight parents with ads that featured other straight parents, and one in which the California Superintendent of Schools assured parents that Prop 8 “has nothing to do with schools.”

While the last was correct from a curriculum standpoint, it made it sound like no person or influence from the LGBT community would ever come near a school. It hid the existence of the 52,000 children being raised by 26,100 same-sex couples in California, not to mention the children being raised by the nearly 73,000 single LGB parents. (Numbers from the Williams Institute of UCLA, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2005/2006 American Community Survey.)

The result? Sixty-four percent of voters with children under 18 voted for Prop 8, according to CNN exit polls. Among married voters with children, the yes votes rose to 68 percent. Only 44 percent of voters without children (and 45 percent of those married without children) voted for Prop 8.

The grassroots fever that is now sweeping the LGBT community may shift some opinions here. LGBT parents are marching alongside other members of the LGBT community in cities across the country, with rainbow-covered strollers and kids decked out in “I love my two mommies” t-shirts. We are showing people that being pro-LGBT does not mean being anti-children.

It is heartwarming to think of LGBT parents and children marching arm in arm in front of a capitol building, united in pride and committed to making a difference. The truth is, though, that any number of reasons, practical and emotional, can get in the way of joining these burgeoning uprisings. Sometimes there are school plays, soccer practice, and doctor’s appointments. It may seem silly to priortize them over civil rights, but all are part of the grand scheme of family negotiation and scheduling. The decisions may be more complicated than they appear, as any parent can tell you.

As parents, too, we must first and foremost protect our children physically and emotionally. We may not want to expose them to the vitriolic catcalls and placards of anti-LGBT forces if we don’t think they are ready to handle them.

Even without that danger, we must find where the boundary lies between making our families visible and forcing our children to be more out about their families than they feel comfortable with. Abigail Garner, an advocate for children of LGBT parents, explains in her book Families Like Mine that while LGBT parents have usually had practice coming out and dealing with people’s reactions, “What no longer feels like a big deal to them can feel insurmountable to children who have not yet developed the skills or understanding to deflect ridicule and advocate for themselves.” She continues, “Parents and their children will often have different ideas about when to be out and when to be more discreet. It is an ongoing struggle to anticipate and adjust to these differences, especially since parents have full control over this issue for the first few years of their children’s lives.”

What can parents do, then, to be sensitive to our children’s needs and yet remain visible as LGBT families in order to create change?

Above all, we must talk with our children about LGBT issues and civil rights in ways that take into account their own maturity and their environment. Children in California, for example, might need this knowledge sooner in order to make sense of the anti-LGBT rhetoric that has been rampant in their state since the Prop 8 fight began.

If we decide not to take our kids to rallies or if they’d rather be home playing Guitar Hero, we can still wear t-shirts that proclaim our parenthood. We can also skip the rallies entirely and dedicate the same amount of time to another volunteer effort, whether it be helping a local LGBT organization with its outreach, writing a letter to the editor of the local paper, or reading And Tango Makes Three to the children’s group at our religious congregation. Sometimes, being an active PTA member can do more to change minds about our families than more specific LGBT action.

Yes, becoming a parent can make it more difficult to be an activist. At the same time, our children give us one of the strongest reasons to keep fighting for equality. It may take a little creativity to find ways of doing so that fit with our children’s needs and schedules, but many of us wouldn’t even have our families if it wasn’t for a bit of creative thinking.

I believe LGBT parents will be–have to be–a significant force in the future of our movement. If we sometimes opt to watch our youngest perform as a snowflake in the school holiday pageant instead of going to a rally, though, that’s just proving we’re good parents. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian (www.mombian.com), a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents. Her column exploring the intersection of politics and parenting will appear every other Thursday at 365gay.com.

Take Rachel Maddow, host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. To me, she epitomizes a second wave of out lesbians in the media, one who didn’t have to come out to the public like Ellen Degeneres, Melissa Etheridge, or Rosie O’Donnell, because she has always been there.

When I mentioned to a close relative of mine that I’ve been watching her show because it’s great to see another Oxford-educated lesbian around, he looked at me in surprise and said, “Oh, I didn’t realize she was a lesbian.”

Now, this is a man to whom I’ve nattered on at length about LGBT issues. He’s as accepting as one could imagine a straight man to be, and reasonably tuned in to LGBT matters. Maddow, however, despite having a haircut suspiciously similar to my partner’s, didn’t register as a lesbian to him.

Maybe it was the eyeshadow MSNBC thrusts upon her, confusing his less-developed sense of these things. Maybe, however, it was the fact that although Maddow is as out as can be to anyone who asks or bothers to read her bio on the MSNBC Web site, she has had no reason to mention her sexual orientation during her show (or if she has, it was an in-passing remark that I missed).

She is not hiding anything; it just hasn’t come up.

I’ve experienced this myself when dealing with the parents and teachers at my son’s school. With my partner employed outside the home, I am the one who takes our son to school, shows up at the parent’s association meetings, and helps coach his soccer team.

Despite a predilection, like Maddow, for dressing “like a first grader” (I shop in the Old Navy boy’s department with my son), to most observers, I’m just another suburban mom. I don’t hesitate to mention my partner when it’s relevant, and I admit to making a point of saying “my partner Helen and I” on occasion, to get people used to the idea.

Sometimes, though, as with Maddow, it doesn’t make sense to plonk it down in the middle of an unrelated conversation.

It has become something of a truism in LGBT parenting circles to talk about how having kids means being out to everyone–teachers, plumbers, cashiers at the grocery store. Kids, as any parent will tell you, can’t keep closet doors closed.

One “Hey, Mommy and Mama!” across the produce aisle, and your cover is blown.

For me, however, the problem is not being outed, it’s assuming everyone knows I’m a lesbian when in fact, I am as invisible as Maddow was to my relative. Even when I try to be open about it, people hear “Alan” when I talk of “Helen” and miss my use of pronouns.

My son once received an invitation to the birthday party of a new school friend, and Helen and I got a doubletake at the door because one of the friend’s parents hadn’t realized we were a two-mom family. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I’d gone to all of the school’s beginning-of-the-year events wearing an “I’m a lesbian” t-shirt. It would save us from those awkward moments.

The other problem is that as a matter of overall identity, I’d rather be known as my son’s mom, not his “lesbian mom.” The commonalities of parenthood far outweigh the differences of sexual orientation.

More importantly, I want my son to be known for his own qualities, not for the fact that he’s “the boy with the lesbian moms.” Yes, his lesbian moms will always be part of his identity, but I want us to be a piece of a much richer whole, not a leading indicator. I hope he never wants to hide the fact that he has two moms, but I also realize, as he gets older, that he may want to come out about his family in his own time and in his own way.

Visibility, however, has its perks.

It may motivate my son’s school to be more inclusive in its materials and curriculum. It may open his classmate’s eyes to the fact that families come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. In an election year, talking with other parents about how the candidates’ differing LGBT policies would affect our family might bring another vote to the side we support.

Being out as a parent is therefore more complex than just dressing our infants in “I love my mommies” jumpers or being outed by our toddlers at the supermarket. It raises issues we may not even have thought of when we started our families or first came out to them. Coming out is often described as an ongoing journey. As parents, it is a journey we take with our children.

We need to be sensitive to each others’ need for rest stops and side trips along the way.

For the moment, with my son still young and unaware that there are those who disparage our family, I will continue with my quiet but firm visibility. Around his school, I do not want to make such a point of being a lesbian that my son feels defined by his parents’ orientation, but neither do I want him ever to see me hide who I am, or what our family is. I know our visibility can do much good, not only for him, but also for other LGBT families and non-traditional families of all types.

It is a fine balance, and I may not always get it right. This week of National Coming Out Day, however, is a good chance to remind myself why I have to try.
Dana Rudolph is the founder and publisher of Mombian, a blog and resource directory for LGBT parents.

Florida law allows gays to serve as foster parents but not adopt. The law is considered the most repressive of its kind in the country.

The Florida legislature adopted the law during Anita Bryant’s infamous anti-gay crusade in 1977. The bill’s sponsor in the state Senate told a local newspaper at the time that the law was intended to send this message to lesbians and gay men: “[we] are really tired of you. We wish you’d go back in the closet.”

The case involves two boys – half brothers – and their openly gay foster father, Frank Gill. The boys have been with Gill since 2004, when he was approached for help by a state child abuse investigator.

The placement was supposed to be temporary, but three years later, the boys and Gill have become a family, and now they want to ensure the children will not be removed at some point from his care.

”I tried to make them feel, from the beginning, like they had a permanent home,” Gill told The Miami Herald in an interview.

He said he told the boys: “I’ll be your daddy; it doesn’t matter what happens, I’ll always be your daddy.”

Today Gill and lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman to overturn the ban on gay adoption and award him permanent custody.

An attorney appointed by Lederman to represent the children said in a report to the court that the children refer Gill and his partner as “dad” and that Gill should be granted the adoption.

“Upon my visit to the home, I observed the minor children to be happy, healthy, well-adjusted, well-groomed, polite and energetic kids,” the report said. A court-appointed guardian also recommended that Gill be allowed to adopt the boys.

The Florida Department of Children & Families and the state attorney general’s office say the ban should be maintained. The position has the support of Gov. Charlie Crist (R) who said he has no plans to have the law repealed.

The case was argued behind closed doors with a written ruling to be issued at a later date.

The case comes less than a month after another South Florida judge ruled against the law in another challenge.

That case involved a 13-year-old boy who had been fostered by a gay Key West man since 2001. Monroe Circuit Court Judge David J. Audlin Jr. said in his ruling that the gay adoption ban violates the Constitution’s separation of powers by preventing family court and child welfare judges from deciding case-by-case what is best for a child.

”Contrary to every child welfare principle the gay adoption ban operates as a conclusive or irrebuttable presumption that . . . it is never in the best interest of any adoptee to be adopted by a homosexual,” he wrote.

In 2004, a federal appeals court upheld Florida’s ban on gay adoption. In a written ruling, the court rejected a challenge by four gay men to the law.

“We exercise great caution when asked to take sides in an ongoing public policy debate, such as the current one over the compatibility of homosexual conduct with the duties of adoptive parenthood,” wrote Judge Stanley Birch.

“The state of Florida has made the determination that it is not in the best interests of its displaced children to be adopted by individuals who ‘engage in current, voluntary homosexual activity’ and we have found nothing in the Constitution that forbids this policy judgment.”

The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.

Attempts to repeal the law have failed several times in the legislature.

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.