Let's round out the week with some righteous indignation..

This is why gay and lesbian couples should be afforded the same legal marital rights as heterosexual couples.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Minneapolis woman should have visitation rights with the two children she and her now-estranged lesbian partner adopted when they were still a couple.

Nancy SooHoo had faced losing all contact with the 11- and 6-year-old girls, whom she said still call her "mommy," and her attorney said the court's decision is good news for gay parents who have struggled for legal parental rights.

SooHoo and Marilyn Johnson had been a couple for almost two decades when they adopted the infant girls from China in 1997 and 2001, but Johnson became the sole legal guardian because the Chinese government wouldn't allow gay couples to adopt.

When the couple split in 2004, Johnson was left as the only legal parent of both girls.

Yes, Ms. SooHoo will still get to see her kids. No, even though she and Ms. Johnson adopted the children together after having been "a couple" for "two decades", a legal technicality means Ms. SooHoo doesn't actually get joint custody. She's not, in the eyes of the courts or the law, their mother.

Yes, divorce is ugly, even moreso when there are children involved. But even though the divorce rate is reportedly down from a peak in the early-80's, it still seems to be that around 40% of first-time (need I even state that these are only heterosexual?) marriages end in divorce. The courts would never think to consider one of the adults in those families not legally a parent to their children, even if the children had been adopted. Not one, not ever.

Because marriage and civil union is not legal for most of the country, there are no similar statistics for gay and lesbian families, but the law of averages being what it is, my guess is that it's about the same. It might even be lower because of the strength of will and determination it takes in many areas of the country to declare yourself married to someone of the same sex - arguably you'd think about jumping into a gay or lesbian marriage maybe a little harder than it seems some heterosexual couples think about it - but again, no statistics, so all we can do is speculate. (I won't even really go off on the whole "if it were recognized, we could actually track things like this and make decisions based on *gasp* actual data" line..)

.. and what was left was Hope.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw

From an article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education (link for subscribers only - Sorry!) (Here's a link to another, longer, article on Inside Higher Ed.)

Michigan's public universities and other state-government agencies cannot provide health-care or other benefits to same-sex partners of their employees, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled.

In an opinion released on Thursday, the court said that such benefits violate an amendment to Michigan's Constitution that bans gay marriage. A three-judge panel interpreted language in that amendment as barring public employers from recognizing same-sex unions in any way, including offering benefits. Institutions affected by the ruling include the University of Michigan, and Michigan State, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Northern Michigan, and Wayne State Universities.

I have to believe that the upset and turmoil currently spreading across the country will eventually (soon?) lead to progress toward equality of rights for same sex couples and their families. For years, these issues have hidden away out of the headlines, but now the whole country is watching dueling headlines from states across the nation.

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.
- Thomas Jefferson

People are making waves, and waves upset the status quo. The only way to reach the light at the end of the tunnel is to keep going through the tunnel.

If you're going through hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill