There is a huge amount of media coverage in England being devoted to the Christmas day announcement that Elton John and David Furnish have had a baby born by a surrogate mother in the US.

It’s likely to be a story that goes on and on and on,  at least in the British media, which seems to be dividing itself  between shock, horror and absolute hostility to cautious welcomes!  Whilst  I may not think Elton and David are the optimum age for starting a family,  but nor are the countless millions of straight couples who conceive  in the more traditional methods.  According to the media,  with fertility treatments becoming more available at lower costs,  we are seeing ladies of advanced age giving birth.

There was a good bit in the UK’s Telegraph paper this Sunday which talks hopefully of surrogacy for gay couples becoming more acceptable following this news.  Barrie & Tony Drewitt-Barlow – the first gay couple in Britain to have a baby with a surrogate mother, and who advised Sir Elton John and David Furnish over their new son, Zachary – tell Olga Craig about their newest arrival: a “one-stop-shop” surrogate baby centre which they open in Essex next month

Barrie Drewitt-Barlow holds his newborn daughter, Saffron, left, and Tony Drewitt-Barlow, top, with partner Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, centre, pose with surrogate mother Rosalind Bellamy, right Photo: AP

Elton John and David Furnish Photo: REUTERS

It is a morality tale for our times. To the casual observer, they could have been the conventional Christmas festivities seen in any household – turkey and trimmings, excited children, doting parents and a huge pile of presents under the tree.

But this was anything but a traditional gathering. In the Drewitt-Barlow home, the guest list for last weekend’s laughter-filled Christmas lunch consisted of five children, their two fathers and their four mothers.

In our changing moral climate, in which the traditional nuclear family is becoming increasingly outmoded, such a mix of melded families is far from uncommon.

But this household – a happy one, it must be said – is unique. Seated around the table with gay parents Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow and their children were the two women who donated eggs and the pair who were the surrogates, carrying the children.

The youngsters call Barrie Dad and Tony Daddy and refer to all four women as Mum. They live with their fathers in Essex during term time and spend the holidays in California, where the couple also have a home and where they see their mothers – although none of the women has any legal rights over their offspring.

Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 42, and his partner Tony, 46, were headline news a decade ago when they became Britain’s first gay surrogate parents.

They made history when they travelled to America and, using an egg donor and a surrogate mother, became joint fathers to twins Aspen and Saffron, now 11. The couple launched a legal battle for the right to have both their names on the twins’ birth certificates, being designated as parent one and parent two.

In the years since, having become acknowledged authorities on surrogacy, they have gone on to have three more children – Orlando, now six, and twins Dallas and Jasper, nine months.

Although the unorthodox creation of the Drewitt-Barlows’ children caused considerably controversy in 1999,   things have changed.

For more on this story -

“Thanks to Zacahary, gay surrogacy will become more acceptable” – Telegraph

Fortunately, on My 17th of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Sullivan v Florida argued by Stevenson, that juveniles can not be sentenced to life without parole for non-homicidal crimes as it violates the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and usual punishment.

Yet today, in some states, including the state of Florida, adoption by gay citizens is prohibited, even with the statistical data that clearly shows that youth “are less culpable — and more amenable to rehabilitation — because of their immaturity.”

Unfortunately, there are those who would rather allow these children, who are often discarded years prior to their run-ins with the law, to become products of a very unjust juvenile system rather than ‘risk’ allowing a gay person or couple to provide shelter and give them a warm, caring environment that very well could change the course of their life, allowing them to blossom into socially productive adults with a chance at a higher education that otherwise may never be afforded. Ironically, there are those on the ‘right’ who scream about money being spent on social programs and prisons, yet stand against saving taxpayers millions by allowing gays to adopt. Ironically, states like Florida are hiring those who hire ‘rent boys’ for hundreds of thousands to give ‘expert’ testimony as to why gays shouldn’t be allowed to adopt.

These are the issues that need to be discussed. We must force our opposition to defend their positions against gay adoption rather than allowing them to always force us into defending ours. We need to ask why the religious right is spending millions of tax-exempt dollars fighting to make sure all children have both a ‘mother and a father’ when millions, perhaps billions more are being spent on children who have neither.

More on MacArthur’s grantmaking in juvenile justice reform at: macfound.org!

Read more of this post at its original source: Focus On The Rainbow – Opine!

Well, McCullom, the guy responsible for recruiting Rekers as a witness, who is also Florida’s Attorney General and who is also (or perhaps was) gearing up to run for the state’s Governor spot currently  held by Charlie Crist, but more importantly is the one who has been fighting to maintain Florida’s anti-gay “no adoption by gays” law has some other skeletons that are coming out of his closet.

According to a post on Tampabay.com:

McCollum’s brilliant, longtime campaign adviser, Arthur Finkelstein, is a  ”married” gay man with two adopted children.

Oh the tangled webs the anti-gay Republicans weave.

Read more at: Blogs.Tampabay.com!

The plus side of using a surrogate is the fact that we can have a child that’s biologically ours without having to ruin either one of our figures. The decision to have children is quite a difficult one as for us queer folk it would entail loads of red tape and paperwork unlike our heterosexual counterparts who only have to have a night of marital bliss for a bun to be cooking in the oven. The concept of having children and the yearning to have them also seem to differ between gay and straight people.

Read more at: Warfare – The delightful and dreary sides of gay life. The views and experiences of a thirty something guy trying to navigate his way through life. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, but always entertaining.!

A new change to the law will allow gay couples to take advantage of a fast-track route to become the legal parents of surrogate children from next week. It’s reported in the UK’s Guardian newspaper that on 6 April, changes to the law will permit two men to be named as parents on a child’s birth certificate for the first time in British history.

Read more at: Men’s Love!

More at: Massachusetts GLBT Blog!

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First a judge last year in Miami ruled that the ban on gay adoption was illegal. Then came word this week that a candidate for governor in Florida, Alex Sink, supports overturning the ban.

That’s huge news, in part because Alex Sink’s opponent in the Governor’s race — current state Attorney General Bill McCollum — proudly defends the ban on gay adoption and believes that homosexuality fosters depression and psychological illness. Those are McCollum’s exact words in a lawsuit filed to keep the gay adoption ban in place. Seems like he’d rather have children languish in America’s foster care system than see them placed with qualified and outstanding parents.

To be clear, nearly every single study on adoption shows that not only do children do well when they are placed with LGBT parents, but they in some cases outperform children raised by straight parents. Moreover, massive numbers of studies show that gay parents are just as gifted and qualified to raise children than straight parents.

More at: Change.org – Gay Rights!

The scene was Michelle Kulstad’s joint custody fight over a a 9-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl she adopted (in 2001 and 2004, respectively) with now-former partner Barbara Maniaci, who left Kulstad and married a man. The twist: Montana state law prohibits two same-sex partners in a relationship to adopt, which meant Maniaci retained legal custody, effectively letting Kulstad parent the kids at Maniaci’s pleasure (in the law’s eyes). When the pair split, Kulstad in January 2007 filed for joint custody; Maniaci filed a motion to dismiss. The case went through the ringer (during which the former partners shared custody) before ending up in front of seven Supreme Court justices.

Read the rest at Queerty!