Recognition of parental rights varies across states. In all states, both partners in a legal marriage are presumed to be a child's (biological or adoptive) legal parents. At the time of this writing, 14 states and 3 American Indian Tribal Nations have legal same-sex marriage; one state recognizes out-of-state marriages although same-sex marriages are not performed in that state. Twenty-one other states allow second parent adoption for same-sex couples. Second parent adoption means that an adult who acts as a parent to a child, shares a household with and is in a committed relationship with the legal parent may adopt the child and have full parental rights. Other states allow decisions related to second parent adoption to be made at the county level, so certain states may have counties that recognize second parent same-sex adoption although the state itself does not (National Center for Lesbian Rights, 2012). This leaves lesbian families without any legal second-parent recognition in as many as 15 states; in these places, the social mother lacks legal decision-making power, the ability to cover the child with her health insurance policy, and may suffer many other real day-to-day consequences. In states where second-parent adoption is an option, the family will be able to overcome these obstacles only after spending thousands of dollars to go through a lengthy and invasive process-experienced by many social mothers as a humiliating and insulting experience of being judged. Up-to-date information about each state's laws is available at