Jan 13, 2006  |  By: LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN  | COMMENTS     

doctor; surely the decision to start a pregnancy should be covered, too.

But with the Supreme Court in flux and Roe under attack from conservative groups, we can hardly sit back and assume that a bill like Marshall’s is too stupid to pass, or would be struck down by the courts if it did.

That makes bills like this a win-win for gay rights opponents: If the measures pass, they’ve found yet another way to hurt gay families. But even if they don’t, they’ve managed to keep us so busy with what we are fighting against that we don’t have time or money left to actually fight for anything.

We saw it first with state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. By the end of 2005, 18 states had enacted such amendments, including many like Georgia that already had laws banning gay marriage.

Then, emboldened by the federal courts’ refusal to overturn Florida’s stringent law banning gay adoption, conservative lawmakers began attempting to pass similar measures in other states — the Human Rights Campaign noted an “exponential” increase in bills targeting gay adoption and foster parenting last year.

So far, the measures haven’t had much success, as none of the bills introduced last year won approval, but gay rights groups have still been bruised by the fights.

Now we have to wonder how long it will be before assisted reproduction measures like the bills in Virginia and Indiana spread to other states.

And how long it will be before “pro-family” ideologues like Marshall and Miller recognize our families, too.