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While glbtq people have
formed unions, partnerships, de facto marriages, and many kinds of
families
for generations, one of the greatest shifts in the history of the family
began in the 1990s when queer families began to insist more vocally that
they receive the same societal benefits as traditional families. |
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A
cottage industry has arisen to provide products, such as this wedding
cake topper from gayweddings.com,
to support
same-sex marriage. |
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Adolescents depend on their families economically and socially.
A homosexual youth's positive or negative identity is largely
determined by the parent-child relationships the youth experiences
during adolescence. |
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Adoption
is an important way in which lesbian and gay couples create families,
though there are frequently social and legal barriers to overcome. |
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Artificial Insemination is often used by lesbians and heterosexual
single women who wish to conceive without sexual contact with males and
is frequently the method of choice when gay men create families through
surrogacy or co-parenting. |
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Boston Marriages--romantic unions between women that were
usually monogamous but not necessarily sexual--flourished in the late
nineteenth-century between women who tended to be college-educated,
feminist, financially independent, and career-minded. |
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Vermont's
Civil
Union law confers all the rights, benefits, and
responsibilities of marriage on same-sex couples. |
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Same-sex
Commitment Ceremonies are similar to heterosexual weddings.
They are legally recognized in some countries, but generally not in the
United States. |
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Domestic Partnership is the generic term for a variety of forms
of legal and institutional recognition of same-sex couples that fall
short of same-sex marriage. |
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Many glbtq people
reject a fixed definition of
Family
imposed by society, while others insist their intimate relationships
are the same as traditional marriages. |
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The plight of
Sharon Kowalski (b. 1947) and
Karen Thompson (b. 1956) brought into sharp focus an
issue that many able-bodied gay men and lesbians had never considered:
the importance of giving legal status to their chosen families. |
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New Right
groups, along with the
Roman Catholic hierarchy and
Evangelical Christians, are the most vocal and visible
opponents of
same-sex marriage. |
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While
Parenting
has risen in importance in glbtq communities as queer families have
become more visible, glbtq people have been parents throughout history. |
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Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), an
American organization of some 460 affiliated chapters and 80,000
members, works to support glbtq people and their loved ones. |
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Same-Sex Marriage has been a goal of glbtq activists and
communities since the dawn of the modern lesbian and gay civil rights
movement. Despite some success abroad, progress toward same-sex
marriage has been slow in the United States. |
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Sexual Citizenship is a concept that draws attention to all
kinds of social exclusions that various sexual communities experience
including the denial of marriage rights. |
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Photo
Credits: The "femme-femme" cake topper provided by
gayweddings.com was photographed by Pettersen Associates. |
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