The State Department's recent decision to make passport applications more gender neutral is the latest in a series of victories for gay rights organizations pushing to change several elements of federal policy considered unfavorable to gay Americans.
The change - unveiled quietly in late December and widely reported over the weekend - came quietly on the same day that President Obama gathered with gay rights advocates to sign legislation ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, a well-publicized and symbolic moment in the decades-long gay rights movement.
Amid the news reports and potential political backlash from conservatives, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pulled back Saturday, deciding that the forms required for first-time passport applicants younger than 16 will retain "Mother" and "Father," but ask instead for the names of a child's "Mother or Parent 1" and "Father or Parent 2" - a more gender neutral reference sought by gay rights groups on behalf of same-sex parents.
Though it's a move steeped in bureaucratic minutia, the tweak to passport application forms means gay rights organizations can cross another item off a list of proposed changes -- called a "Blueprint for Positive Change" by some groups -- presented to Obama aides during the 2008 presidential transition as a series of changes that could be made through executive action without congressional approval, according to gay rights leaders familiar with the proposals.
In Qusra, in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian families have spent August imprisoned inside their own...
Life under genocide has its familiar daily rituals. A discerning eye detects latent horrors in the...
Israeli authorities have formally allowed Jewish prayer for the first time inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied...
Haitham Rashaidh was among the last to leave his home near Ein al-Auja, a natural spring...
