Battle To Block Gay Parenting Heats up in Colorado
Michael Christopher Bryan

In the escalating battle over gay and lesbian parental rights in Colorado, a Republican group tried last week to physically bar partners of gay and lesbian parents from obtaining legal parenting rights, the Rocky Mountain Denver News reported.

Republican Rep. Don Lee spearheaded the attempt to legally block the parental rights of all gay and lesbian couples with children with measure presented to the legislature.

The move marks Lee's second attempt in two days to prohibit gay men and lesbians the right to be a child's legal parent or guardian. Two days earlier, he voted to impeach a Denver judge for a child custody decision involving a lesbian couple. However, with four days remaining in the 2004 legislative session, pressure is mounting to pass the gay parenting bill.

Lee says his carefully worded bill does not single out gay men and lesbians, but includes a short list of who would have legal standing when deciding parental responsibilities: a biological parent, stepparent, adoptive parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, brother or sister. The list does not include gay men or lesbians.


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Experts: U.S. Marriage Model Is Not Universal Norm
BY NANCY HAUGHT
c.2004 Newhouse News Service

As the debate over same-sex unions rages, particularly in Oregon and Massachusetts, some central questions about the meaning and manner of marriage swirl through the air like a thrown handful of rice. Here's what anthropologists, sociologists, legal scholars, historians and religious leaders have to say.

Q: Is there a single definition of marriage?

A: No. "In the big sweep of human history and broad cross-cultural comparison, monogamous, heterosexual marriage, voluntarily entered into, is a pretty rare form of marriage," says Roger N. Lancaster, a professor of anthropology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

Lancaster is the designated spokesman for the American Anthropological Association, the world's largest group of cultural experts, and the author of "The Trouble With Nature: Sex in Science and Popular Culture."