With the list of marriage equality states doubling in the last six months and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s introduction this week of the Every Child Deserves a Family Act which would remove barriers to same-sex couples who wish to foster or adopt children, it is fitting that The New Yorker honors mothers this year with a Happy Mothers’ Day cover.

I predicted this, but I really thought now that we were within two weeks of oral arguments, the Talibangelical bigots would hold off criticizing the very foundation of the family of the Chief Justice of the United States of America.

But no.

I cried during Somewhere Between, Linda Goldstein Knowlton’s poignant documentary about four adopted Chinese teenage girls growing up in America. It’s hard to be a teenager, it’s hard to be a teenage girl, and even harder when your identity is complicated by race and adoption.

Somewhere Between delves into the concepts of family, roots and parental love while exploring racism, transracial adoption, and who we are as people–nature and nurture.

Words supporting marriage equality are nice, and greatly appreciated. Growth from old positions is nice, and greatly appreciated.

But executive opinions don’t actually change anything. Executive orders, on the other hand . . .

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is trying to play the martyr once more. This time, they are trying to claim the mantle of James Madison and Martin Luther King Jr. as they self-righteously hold themselves up as the defenders of religious liberty. If the bishops were truly honest and transparent about what they are doing, however, there’d be a revision of Dante’s sign hanging over the door to every bishop’s office and over the entrances to far too many catholic churches: “Abandon all independent thinking, ye who enter here”.

Sorry, your eminences, but the answer is no.

Jennifer Roback Morse of the NOM’s Ruth Institute — (an anti-gay hate speech propaganda factory) — took malicious aim at a Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services publicity campaign to promote awareness among gay people that they may foster and/or adopt children in need of homes, RaiseAChild.us. But an African American pastor rebuked her.

Wow. Wow. Prodigal Sons is a stunning, jaw dropping look at family, adoption, severe trauma, sexual orientation, gender and ultimately what is and how we define our identity. Using her gifts as a filmmaker Kimberley Reed gives us an intimate, evolving story about the nature of identity and the meaning of family.

Huckabee needs oral bypass surgery STAT!