June, 01 2023, 09:30am EDT
On LGBTQ Families Day a New Report Calls for Updating State Parentage Laws to Protect Children and LGBTQ Families
Especially as LGBTQ families face growing threats across the country, we urgently need more states to pass comprehensive parentage reform to recognize contemporary families and protect all children, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.”
Five leading national organizations that advocate for LGBTQ families joined forces on a new report, Relationships at Risk: Why We Need to Update State Parentage Laws to Protect Children and Familiesships at Risk: Why We Need to Update State Parentage Laws to Protect Children and Families: Movement Advancement Project (MAP), COLAGE, Family Equality, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), and NCLR.
The report details how the current patchwork of parentage laws across the country – many of which haven’t been updated in decades – leaves LGBTQ parents and their children vulnerable. Nearly 1 in 3 LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are raising children under the age of 18, many of them in states that still have outdated laws. This means that far too many children in LGBTQ families are potentially at risk.
Why Parentage Is So Important to Children and LGBTQ Families
Parentage is the legal relationship between a child and their parents, which is essential to children's security and well-being. Parentage is crucial so that parents can make critical healthcare and education decisions for their children, and so that children have access to important benefits including insurance coverage, social security survivor benefits, and inheritance. Legal parentage also ensures a child does not lose their important connection to a parent in circumstances such as the death of one parent or the end of the parents’ relationship.
“All children, regardless of who their parents are, should be able to establish a secure legal tie to the parents who love and care for them. Yet, many states’ parentage laws are more than 40 years out of date. This leaves too many LGBTQ families navigating complicated and costly systems to safeguard their connections to their children.,” said Naomi Goldberg, Deputy Director of MAP and the lead author of the report.
State-By-State Examination of Parentage Laws Shows Many Are Out of Date and Out of Step with How Families Form
The report reviews the ways in which legal parentage may be established, which states have updated their laws, and in which states LGBTQ families remain at risk. Families form in many different ways. Yet despite the increasing number of LGBTQ families and the increasing number of all families formed through assisted reproduction, to date fewer than a dozen states have comprehensively updated their parentage laws to reflect the diverse ways today’s families form.
More than half of states lack clear, accessible, and equitable pathways for LGBTQ parents to establish parentage. As a result, many families face complicated, time-consuming, and costly processes to establish legal ties between parents and children. LGBTQ parents in many states must still undergo demeaning and unnecessary “home studies” to adopt their own children and spend thousands in legal costs to secure their parentage. And for many parents that cost, and access to the courts, is completely out of reach, leaving them at tremendous risk because their state has not updated its parentage laws. In the most heart-wrenching cases, children have been pulled into the child welfare system because a parent who loves and cares for them wasn’t recognized as a legal parent, and non-birth parents who planned for and raised their kids have been stripped of their parental rights because a court relied on outdated laws that fail to acknowledge the existence of same-gender parents.
“LGBTQ families are a part of every community across the country, yet many LGBTQ families still face expensive and demeaning barriers to providing legal security for their children,” said Stacey Stevenson, CEO of Family Equality. “Parents shouldn’t have to navigate a complicated legal system just to ensure their kids are protected.”
“LGBTQ families form through love, intention and care and children of LGBTQ parents, like all children, need and deserve to know their families are secure. Our laws should protect families, not create barriers to their stability,” said Jordan Budd, Executive Director of COLAGE.
“We are seeing far too many heart-breaking examples of the discrimination that LGBTQ+ parents continue to face in the United States. When states and courts refuse to give LGBTQ families the same protections as other families, it leaves parents at risk of being shut out of their child’s life and children at risk of losing a parent who loves and cares for them,” said Nesta Johnson, NCLR Family Law Staff Attorney.
Progress is Happening Across the Country to Update State Parentage Laws and to Protect LGBTQ Families
While detailing the importance of legal parentage and outlining the risks to LGBTQ families, the report also shows the path forward. It highlights states that have taken crucial steps to update their parentage laws in recent years, including Colorado, Connecticut, and Rhode Island–and states like Massachusetts, which has the opportunity right now to protect LGBTQ families.
“Families form in many ways and our laws must reflect that so children have equality and security. States like Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Colorado have led the way by updating their laws to ensure child-centered, equal, and accessible paths to legal parentage for all families, including LGBTQ families. Especially as LGBTQ families face growing threats across the country, we urgently need more states to pass comprehensive parentage reform to recognize contemporary families and protect all children, regardless of the circumstances of their birth,” said Polly Crozier, Director of Family Advocacy at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD).
Story spotlight: parents should not be at the mercy of chance
Outdated parentage laws can mean children don’t have their parents when they need them most, like during a medical crisis, as happened to parents Moira and Hillary.
When Moira underwent an emergency c-section and their daughter June was immediately rushed to the NICU, Hillary had no legal standing as a parent because their second-parent adoption was still pending. With Moira incapacitated and Hillary’s parental status unclear, neither parent was able to make medical decisions for June and the NICU staff were left to do what they thought was best. Thankfully they were kind enough to let Hillary be with June, but she knows that was not guaranteed.
“Had we been at a different hospital, or had we interacted with different staff,” Hillary says,” I might have been shut out entirely. Even though things worked out, parents like us should not be at the mercy of chance.”
Moira, Hillary and June’s story helped encourage the Rhode Island legislature to update their state parentage laws in 2020 to ensure other families don’t face that same uncertainty at a time of crisis.
About the Report
The report was authored by the Movement Advancement Project, in partnership with COLAGE, Family Equality, GLAD, and NCLR, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It is available online at: www.mapresearch.org/2023-parentage-report
Through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education,
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30% of Those Killed in Gaza Genocide Were Children, Many From 'Deliberate' Targeting: UN Commission
“By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future," said the commission's head.
Jun 23, 2026
About 30% of those killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, 2023, have been children, according to a United Nations inquiry on Tuesday, which found the "deliberate" targeting of kids to have furthered a genocide against Palestinians.
The report, authored by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, follows a previous finding in September that Israel's actions in Gaza constituted genocide.
"The deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza," the commission said.
Between the start of Israel's military campaign in October 2023 and the "ceasefire" agreement in October 2025, the report found that more than 20,000 children were killed, while more than 44,000 were injured. Among those killed, more than 5,000 were under the age of five, more than 1,000 were under the age of one, and more than 400 were newborn babies.
The report highlights documented instances in which Israeli forces directly fired upon children, with medical professionals testifying that they treated kids with "direct gunshot and sniper wounds, often to the head and abdomen." One sample of 168 children killed by gunshots found that 73 were shot in the head and 22 were shot in the chest, which the commission argued was evidence of intentionality.
"Based on the clustering of injuries and the targeted body parts, I assess that the Israeli soldiers have been deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice—a different body part being targeted on different days… There is a very clear pattern that suggests this is a deliberate aiming of different body parts [of children]," one doctor told the commission.
They also cited dozens of cases of children being targeted by snipers and quadcopters. The report quotes one Israeli soldier who appeared anonymously in a documentary about the war and described operating drones like a video game.
"The drones, in my opinion, are what most dehumanize the other side," he said. "You see everything on a screen. You drop the bomb. It feels like a game. You can sit in some basement of a house, safe, with your helmet off, scratching your balls, half-dressed, and kill Palestinians.”
The report also argues that the deaths of children in airstrikes were not mere collateral damage, as Israel often asserts, but the foreseeable result of Israel's use of high payload weapons against densely populated areas, which resulted in massive numbers of civilian casualties.
"These deliberate attacks wiped out entire families across two or three or even four generations, with the Israeli security forces fully aware that children would be present and that children, with their small, fragile bodies, have a higher chance of death and serious injury in such attacks," the report said.
"The Israeli security forces continued and repeated these attacks over a two-year period, without amending targeting criteria or selection of weapons, while child casualties mounted," it continued. "This indicates that such attacks, which killed children in such high numbers, were intentional."
Adding to evidence of intentionality, the report said, was the direct targeting of neonatal and maternity care centers, which it said "directly endangered" the ability of newborn babies to survive and contributed to miscarriages and birth defects. In the first half of 2025, Gaza experienced a 41% decline in live births compared with the same period in 2022, the report found.
The report notes that numerous Israeli politicians have explicitly justified the targeting of children since the early days of the genocidal onslaught.
On October 9, 2023, Nissim Vaturi, the deputy Knesset speaker, called on the army to "Erase Gaza... Do not leave a child there. Expel all the remaining ones at the end." In January 2025, he said, “Gaza is full of terrorists and every child born there is already a terrorist, from the moment of his birth.”
Amid Israel's attack on the Al-Shifa hospital in July 2024, Israeli Knesset Member Amit Halevi stated that the hundreds of babies in its maternity ward were "all born terrorists."
This was part of a “systematic and complete destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza,” the report said, that fell heaviest on children. Attacks on pediatric hospitals forced sick and injured kids into smaller facilities without the necessary supplies or pediatric staff.
Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid entering Gaza, meanwhile, turned survivable injuries into ones that caused death or permanent disability. Doctors said children were forced to undergo "horrific amputations" without anesthesia, while others who'd suffered burns and other traumatic injuries were left without painkillers.
The destruction of medical infrastructure, the report said, was not incidental. It said Israel had "operational plans and procedures for attacking healthcare facilities.” The result, it said, was preventing Palestinians' “capacity and possibility to heal, recover, and live.”
The report points out that since the ceasefire went into effect, more than 100 children had been killed and hundreds more wounded as of mid-January, with many being shot near the so-called "yellow line" that marks the edge of Israel's occupation area in Gaza, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been gradually advancing forward.
Israel dismissed the findings of the commission, rejecting what it called a “second defamatory advocacy report."
“Israel dismisses this libelous sham,” it said in a statement and added that while “every child deserves protection,” the report ignored “the brutal tactics of Hamas.”
Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the UN commission, said, "The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces."
“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire," he said, "children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”
Beyond Gaza, the commission reported that Israeli forces have killed more than 200 children in the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, 2023. Hundreds more have been detained, often without any charge, and many have been subjected to systemic mistreatment in detention, including the deprivation of food and medical care, torture, and sexual abuse.
“Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight,” said Muralidhar. “The destruction of their health, education, and development is irreversible.”
“The protection, care, and survival of Palestinian children are inseparable from the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” he continued. “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.”
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As Deadly Heatwave Scorches Europe, Fossil Fuel Giants 'Have Blood on Their Hands'
"Stop fossil fuel giants from turning up the heat on our planet—and make them pay for the damage they are causing," one campaigner told lawmakers.
Jun 23, 2026
Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Belgium, and other European countries were under red-alert warnings on Tuesday as an alarmingly early heatwave continued to scorch the continent, underscoring the threat posed by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.
Météo-France, the country's official meteorological administration, said Tuesday that "further record-breaking temperatures are expected, including some that could surpass all previous records, regardless of the time of year," as "sunshine continues to dominate across France, maintaining oppressive and exhausting heat throughout the country." In recent days, France has recorded dozens of deaths linked to the extreme temperatures, including two were children who died in a hot car and 40 people who drowned seeking relief from the heat.
“Heat is hurting children across Europe," Matilde Angeltveit, senior adviser and global climate advocacy lead at Save the Children, said Tuesday. "It affects their health and it is disrupting their education and the impact can sometimes be long term. This should be a joyous time as many children across Europe wrap up the school year, but for many it is not."
Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service said that while the ongoing heatwave is "remarkable for occurring so early in the year, this event is consistent with Europe’s rapid warming and with the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves already observed in summer."
"Europe is the fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising by approximately 0.56°C per decade since the mid-1990s, more than double the global average," Copernicus noted.
Reuters observed Tuesday that Europe "was the continent furthest above its historic temperature norm on Monday."
"Heatwaves are no longer freak weather anomalies. They are now a recurring crisis inflicting suffering, claiming lives and fracturing our health systems and infrastructure," said Hans Kluge, European regional director for the World Health Organization, which estimates that extreme heat has killed more than 200,000 people across Europe over the past four years.
Campaigners said the current heatwave marks the latest evidence of governments' failure to rein in the fossil fuel industry, which has raked in massive profits this year thanks to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
"This isn’t a natural disaster," said Aaron Regunberg, director of the Climate Accountability Project at the US-based advocacy group Public Citizen, which declared in response to the European heatwave that oil giants "have blood on their hands."
"The fossil fuel industry’s pollution and decades of deception about the impact of burning fossil fuels has spurred this extreme heat, which has already killed multiple people," said Regunberg. "Decades ago, scientists at Exxon were discussing with other oil companies research connecting climate change with ‘suffering and death due to thermal extremes.’ These companies knew of evidence that their conduct would cause these harms, and orchestrated campaigns of climate denial to undermine that evidence. They should be held accountable.”
Areeba Hamid, the co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said political leaders "need to stop winging it on extreme weather and start treating it as the security and public health challenge it is."
"When classrooms become ovens, care homes overheat, transport starts to buckle and workers are forced to toil in dangerous temperatures, it’s clear the country isn’t ready," said Hamid. "Adaptation alone won’t be enough. Ministers must also stop fossil fuel giants from turning up the heat on our planet—and make them pay for the damage they are causing."
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'Humiliating String of Defeats' Threatens Trump's Plot to Rig 2026 Midterms: Election Expert
"As Republican electoral prospects wane, Trump will grow more desperate, and that desperation will lead to even more extreme actions by the administration."
Jun 23, 2026
President Donald Trump's unprecedented efforts to rig the 2026 midterm elections are on thin ice after having been repeatedly thwarted by courts, according to election law attorney Marc Elias.
In a Monday analysis published by Democracy Docket, Elias noted that the US Department of Justice has seen its attempts to obtain states' voter files shot down in court nine different times, most recently by a federal judge in Maryland who ruled the state was under no obligation to hand its voter file to the federal government.
Elias wrote that Trump needs states' voter files to build a national voter database, which would allow his administration to pick and choose which voters are eligible to participate in future elections and which should be purged.
"The problem for Trump is that his Department of Justice keeps losing cases that it needs to access this critical data," Elias explained. "This humiliating string of defeats threatens to derail Trump’s signature plan to subvert the 2026 midterm elections."
Trump will also have difficulty blaming these court losses on left-wing judges, Elias added, because Trump-appointed judges have been responsible for more than half of the defeats the DOJ has suffered, which he described as "nothing short of a debacle."
Elias, whose law firm has been involved in trying to block the DOJ from accessing voter files, said it was worth celebrating the latest victory over the Trump administration, but he warned that more fights are coming.
"As Republican electoral prospects wane, Trump will grow more desperate," he wrote, "and that desperation will lead to even more extreme actions by the administration. It will also require much more litigation."
Trump earlier this year signed an executive order instructing the United States Postal Service to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to its voter lists.
The order, currently being challenged in court by congressional Democrats and all 23 Democratic state attorneys general, could essentially eliminate mail-in voting in the US, opponents have warned.
CNN on Monday reported that the administration is also trying to squeeze states into changing their election laws by withholding "tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funds" from states unless they phase out specified electronic voting systems and move back to relying on paper ballots.
States wanting to receive funding must also "run their voter rolls through a controversial Department of Homeland Security citizenship verification database," CNN reported.
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