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HARTFORD— — A judge on Friday allowed two Glastonbury men, accused two years ago of sexually assaulting two of their nine adopted boys, to withdraw their no-contest pleas and take their cases to trial. The unusual action came during what was to be a sentencing hearing for George Harasz and Douglas Wirth, who entered pleas in January to one felony count each of risk of injury to a minor. They agreed to suspended prison sentences. The only issue for Friday's hearing was to be whether each would be required to register as sex offenders. But a new allegation of sexual...

The case of a same-sex Connecticut couple accused of repeatedly raping and abusing two of their nine adopted boys is headed for trial. Married couple George Harasz and Douglas Wirth of Glastonbury were supposed to be sentenced Friday in Hartford Superior Court under a plea deal, but instead withdrew from their agreement with prosecutors. The men had already pleaded no contest in January to one felony count each of risk of injury to a minor — a reduction from even more serious charges related to sexual assault. But in a surprise turn, the couple’s attorneys pulled them out of...

A judge on Friday allowed two Glastonbury men, accused two years ago of sexually assaulting two of their nine adopted boys, to withdraw their no-contest pleas and take their cases to trial. The unusual action came during what was to be a sentencing hearing for George Harasz and Douglas Wirth, who entered pleas in January to one felony count each of risk of injury to a minor. They agreed to suspended prison sentences. The only issue for Friday’s hearing was to be whether each would be required to register as sex offenders. But a new allegation of sexual assault against...

A boy sexually abused by his adoptive father and his gay partner was labelled an ‘unruly child’ by social workers who ignored his complaints for years, a damning report has revealed. They sent Andy Cannon, now 23, back to the couple’s home despite his protests of abuse, praising the gay man who adopted him as a ‘very caring parent’. The report accuses Wakefield social services, in Yorkshire, of ‘folly and gross misjudgment’. Mr Cannon, who was wrongly diagnosed with mental disorders and prescribed anti-psychotic drugs, believes he would have been listened to sooner if his adoptive father wasn’t gay.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called homosexuality a “sexual preference” and said it conflicted with the “culture of Islam,” according to a report last week in the Turkish daily Hürriyet. The remarks rapidly became the subject of criticism on Monday in a widely read European gay media outlet. Speaking in the Netherlands on Thursday, Erdogan fiercely objected to a Dutch lesbian couple adopting a nine-year-old Turkish boy named Yunus. …

"I knew it was going to happen this way because boyfriends and husbands may come and go, but kids are forever. I didn't want to keep waiting." Hilton told the LA Times that he had always known he would have a child by age 35 and that he would do so alone.

Neil Patrick Harris, 39, enjoyed a very merry Christmas with his partner David Burtka and their 2-year-old twins Gideon and Harper. The actor shared photos of the fam via Twitter, which showed Burtka and Gideon donning Santa hats as they made breakfast, and Harper sporting a silly pair of toy glasses that belong to Mr. Potato Head. "Ms. Harper likes Mr. Potato Head's fashion sense," Harris cracked. "She is quite the looker, but I think it's a bit shortsighted." The kids must have worn out the parents, since Burtka was also snapped taking a nap. “Here is @Davidburtka enjoying his...

BURLINGTON, Vermont (Reuters) - A Mennonite minister was found guilty on Tuesday of aiding a kidnapping by helping a woman flee to Nicaragua with her daughter to evade court orders giving visitation rights to her former lesbian partner. The case drew widespread attention as gay rights groups and evangelical Christian groups took opposing sides in the legal battle between the two women over Isabella Miller-Jenkins, now 10. Federal prosecutors say Kenneth Miller of Stuarts Draft, Virginia, helped orchestrate Lisa Miller's flight to Canada and Nicaragua in 2009 with her daughter out of Christian solidarity with her decision to reject homosexuality...

Quite simply, growing up with gay parents was very difficult, and not because of prejudice from neighbors. People in our community didn’t really know what was going on in the house. To most outside observers, I was a well-raised, high-achieving child, finishing high school with straight A’s. Inside, however, I was confused. When your home life is so drastically different from everyone around you, in a fundamental way striking at basic physical relations, you grow up weird. I have no mental health disorders or biological conditions. I just grew up in a house so unusual that I was destined to...

(CBS News) Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday backed away from his support of adoptions by same-sex couples, saying that he simply "acknowledges" the legality of such adoptions in many states. A day earlier, Romney, in an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, had indicated that while he does not support same-sex marriage, he considers the adoption of children by same-sex couples a "right." He said on Thursday: "And if two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship, or even to adopt a child -- in my state individuals of...

(CBS News) Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that while he opposes same-sex marriage, he is "fine" with gay couples adopting children. The presumptive nominee also declined to criticize President Obama's reversal on the issue, saying he would "respect the right of the president to reach the conclusion he has." In his most detailed comments to date on the issue of civil rights for gay people, Romney told Fox News television host Neil Cavuto, "I know many gay couples that are able to adopt children. That's fine. But my preference is that we ... continue to define marriage as...

They’re here and they’re queer. But don’t assume they’re all jumping on the gay marriage bandwagon, Katie Couric. The Against Equality collective — a group of gay activists who oppose gay marriage — has been “quietly assembling a digital archive to document the critical resistance to the politics of inclusion.” The result? A compelling pocketbook, Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage. Edited by gay activist Ryan Conrad, and introduced by Yasmin Nair, a Chicago-based academic, the easy-to-read resistance publication sets out to empower information-seeking people, from poor rural folks to technologically disadvantaged gays living outside of North America’s gay...

(Oct. 17) -- Walter Schumm knows what he's about to do is unpopular: publish a study arguing that gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents. But the Kansas State University family studies professor has a detailed analysis that past almost aggressively ideological researchers never had. When one such researcher, Paul Cameron, published a paper in 2006 arguing that children of gay parents were more likely to be gay themselves, the response from the academic press was virulent, to say nothing of the popular press; the Southern Poverty Law Center, for instance, equated Cameron to a...

Lengthy and passionate testimony in the Senate Judiciary A Committee today ended with a 3-1 party line rejection of a measure that would have expanded gay adoption in Louisiana. Senate Bill 129, which ended up as a combination of two measures by Sens. Ed Murray and J.P. Morrell, would have allowed unmarried couples to jointly adopt and allow an existing parent to petition a court to add a second adult as a legal parent. The bill would have applied regardless of the adoptive parents' sexual orientation, but the debate centered on the rights of gay parents and their children. Louisiana...

Everyone talks about equality. But equality only exists in the eyes of God and is, after all, a rather Christian concept. We are all loved by God and in that is our worth. Ironically, many politicians are marginalizing religion from the public sphere in the name of equality. And many see the major obstacle to this enforced equality as Christianity. Right now, homosexual advocates are marching under the banner of equality. And advancing quite well thank you very much. In fact, just this week the Archdiocese of Washington fell victim to the cause of enforced equality. The Archdiocese just posted...

Over the course of the last few weeks, I have received several requests for an update on the Frank Lombard case. Lombard is the (now former) Duke administrator who was accused last summer of attempting to allow, and even arrange for, strangers he met on the internet to rape his adopted child. A few days ago, WRAL, a Raleigh-based news station, released an update on the case. That update is worth re-printing here, along with my commentary, both for what the update says and what it does not say: “A former Duke University employee has agreed to plead guilty to...

While organizing our filing system, I ran across my adoption papers. My mother gave them to me a couple of years ago for my own records. The cost of my adoption was a 300.00 donation to Catholic Charities in Chicago, I was six days old. I am blessed to be in the family, in which I was placed. My mother tells me there were lots of rules to comply with. The agency wanted to make sure I had a stable and secure home. In reality, no one can predict how a family will one day turn out. Ours certainly had...

Democrat Pete Stark, who told a town hall questioner “I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg, it wouldn’t be worth wasting the urine” has proposed a new bill to punish Red States for daring to prohibit adoptions by gays. Not surprisingly, Stark’s bill, “Every Child Deserves a Family Act” is built on a lie. The bill would withhold federal welfare funding from any state the Gay lobby doesn’t like. Its immediate targets are Utah, Nebraska Florida, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Where did Stark’s data come from? Stark’s bill says, “A report from the Evan B. Donaldson Institute found that...

The state's [Louisiana's] Department of Vital Statistics cannot be forced to provide a birth certificate listing two men as the parents of of a Louisiana-born boy adopted by a gay couple in New York, a lawyer with the state's attorney general argued Wednesday morning to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Kyle Duncan, head of the attorney general's appellate division, argued before a three-judge panel that because Louisiana law does not allow an unmarried couple to jointly adopt a child, the state registrar cannot be forced to recognize an out-of-state adoption of that sort in a new birth certificate....

  Council removes Christian paediatrician from adoption panel A paediatrician has been removed as a medical adviser to Northamptonshire County Council after asking to abstain from making recommendations on the placement of children with same-sex couples. by Jenna Lyle Posted: Sunday, July 19, 2009, 10:15 (BST)  Dr Sheila Matthews, who has been a medical adviser to the Council’s adoption panel for five years, said she believed it would be “inappropriate” to place children in a household with same sex parents.“Using my professional judgement and having done a lot of reading around the subject, I am satisfied that there are...