What probably doesn’t automatically come to mind is coercion, racism and a conservative Christian agenda that extends beyond mere abortion prevention. Award-winning journalist Kathryn Joyce describes all these issues -- and, sadly, many more -- as being shockingly rampant in the multi-billion-dollar adoption industry. And she delves into them, in somewhat jarring investigative detail, in her new book, “The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption.”

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Lawmakers voted 77 to 44 in favor of the gay-marriage bill on its third and final reading.

People watching from the public gallery and some lawmakers immediately broke into song after the result was announced, singing the New Zealand love song "Pokarekare Ana" in the indigenous Maori language.

"For us, we can now feel equal to everyone else," said Tania Penafiel Bermudez, a bank teller who said she already considers herself married to partner Sonja Fry but now can get a certificate to prove it. "This means we can feel safe and fair and right in calling each other wife and wife."

In one of several speeches that ended in a standing ovation, bill sponsor Louisa Wall told lawmakers the change was "our road toward healing."

"In our society, the meaning of marriage is universal — it's a declaration of love and commitment to a special person," she said. She added that "nothing could make me more proud to be a New Zealander than passing this bill."

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Leffew, the adopted son of two gay dads and no stranger to YouTube thanks to his parents' channel on gay family life, told the chief justice: "You and I both know that family goes deeper than blood." And with an eye toward the high court's decision on California's Proposition 8, the 12-year-old told Roberts that, even though they don't agree on marriage equality, Leffew knows that his family is "just as valuable and worthwhile as any other."

See what else the smart (and judging from the video backdrop, "Star Wars"-loving) preteen had to say here:

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Now, with court approval at last in hand, a political squabble with a trace of Cold War friction has derailed those plans, leaving them in anxious limbo.

Brian Preece had been hoping his life as an adoptive father would have started by now, perhaps with a special treat for his 4 1/2-year-old boy.

"I was planning on going swimming with my son," he said. But instead of splashing around in a pool in Nampa, Idaho, Preece and his wife, Rebecca, sat in a Moscow hotel lobby this week, at loose ends after officials refused to turn over the boy even though a court approved the adoption last year.

With them was Jeana Bonner of South Jordan, Utah, on her fourth trip to Russia as part of intensive efforts by her and her husband, Wayne, to adopt a 5-year-old girl.

"There is no process set up, there is no information specific to our case," said Bonner, who left her husband behind in Utah to care for their two biological daughters, including one with Down syndrome.

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Putin said that he still needed to review the bill's final text but that he "intend[ed] to sign the law,” adding that he also planned to beef up care  for disadvantaged children within Russia with “a presidential decree changing the procedure of helping orphaned children, children left without parental care, and especially children who are in a disadvantageous situation due to their health problems.”

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Lou Wegner, a 16-year-old actor and singer from Columbus, Ohio, started Kids Against Animal Cruelty when he was 14. The organization, which uses social networking to encourage adoptions at high-kill animal shelters, has helped 20,000 pets escape euthanasia in two years.

Lou said he became aware of euthanasia at shelters when he went to Los Angeles to make the short film "Be Good to Eddie Lee." The director suggested that he volunteer at an animal shelter.

Until then, Lou thought shelters were safe havens for strays and lost pets. "It was heartbreaking. All these dogs crying in their cages. Knowing they would be put down broke my heart," he said.

The group started with Lou and his friends, carrying signs on street corners, and a Facebook page with 47 friends. Now it has more than 12,000 U.S. members and 50,000 members, supporters and partner coalitions across the globe, he said.

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According to the study's lead author, doctoral candidate Justin Lavner, "The children showed meaningful gains in heterosexual, gay and lesbian families. Their cognitive development improved substantially, while their behavior problems and social development were stable."

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Welcome to motherhood, I thought, backing away as Ben turned the soles of his feet toward my husband and me.

“No, I don’t need to touch them,” I answered calmly, then snapped, “Don’t you touch them either!”

“Why not?”

I did not say, “Because those are the most disgusting things I’ve ever set eyes on outside of that little dog we passed after it had been attacked by that big dog and the little dog’s eyeball was hanging out of its socket.”

I answered, “Because that looks contagious.” As in, I am repulsed that I’ve been walking the same floor as those infectious mushroom plantations. As in, you would not want to get whatever’s on your feet anywhere near your privates or scalp. “How long have they looked like that?”

“Mm, a couple of weeks?” Ben had no concept of time, but suffice it to say this meant his feet had looked leprous for a good long while.

“Why didn’t you say anything until now?”

“Mm, I don’t know.”

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I looked back at my son, hanging upside down on the monkey bars. “Sounds like you have Asshole syndrome,” I said. “Have you ever thought of that?”

In my head, I said that. What I said out loud was something like, “We think he’s just Jake, and that’s good enough for us.”

“Well, he might have Asperger’s,” she pursued. "And you should have him tested.”

“Well, you might be a bitch," I said, in my head. "Is there a test for that?”

My actual words were, “We’re not interested in labeling him at this point.”

I was standing under a tree with a woman from our home-school play group when this dreaded “developmental milestones conversation” occurred. Her son had all his multiplication facts memorized; mine still hadn’t memorized addition facts. Her son was complimented for being polite; mine often ignored other children's personal space. Her son was reading three grade levels ahead; mine was reading three below.

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I am perhaps the happiest person who has ever written to you. My life is full and I am at peace and I have finally reached a balance that eluded me all my life. How did this happen? Well, at the age of 38 I adopted a baby. She was a day old when I held her and she came home with me when she was 3 days old. The paperwork took months but that's not important.  I have worked very hard all my life, forever chasing goals, climbing the corporate ladder, traveling and working internationally. But I was literally sick of it. Neither the money nor the travel meant much. I hated the constant politicking and the random viciousness of work life. I saw no escape. I couldn't imagine dropping out and then I went through a severe illness that left me unable to bear a child. I had a nervous breakdown. I am lucky enough to have a supportive husband, who while not acknowledging the possibility of a breakdown, did everything physically possible to make me better. I stopped working. I was completely washed out, I would be suicidal if that did not require an effort and the ability to feel. And then like a miracle I got my baby. I remember being quite ambivalent when I went to meet her. Yet, something clicked when I held her. I felt a sense of fierce belonging I have never felt before and I know my baby knew me too. She was and is amazing. She never cried as an infant. Except for food. She is very loving, brave, curious, smart, speaks two languages at 2 and a half. OK I am blabbing. I mean, now she is a handful. She is not perfect. She runs around in an airplane, gets hyper in malls, and goes crazy if she hears the sound of a packet of crisps, but I see an awesome person in the making. A kiss can still make my day. And we do believe in manners and discipline and naughty corners, so she is not spoiled or anything.  The past two and a half years have been blissful. My husband is a great daddy and I suspect my daughter's heart belongs to him, but that's cool. I am just incredibly lucky. My friends who knew me as the hard-driving MBA are amazed that I am happy as a stay-at-home mom, a choice my younger self would have derided. Actually my daughter goes to daycare twice a week and she would be happy there, so I can easily go back to work, this is no spiel for motherhood.

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When it became clear that her two-year battle with cancer was drawing to a close, my mom put a lot of effort into apologizing to me. As I sat by her beside, trying to comfort her now that we knew she was near death, she told me, "I know I was a bitch to you." The confession came as a surprise, but I smiled, figuring it was the morphine talking. Maybe the drug gave her the freedom to let go of her pride. "You were a lovable bitch," I responded, with a wink and a smile. But inside, my heart was breaking. Why couldn't she have apologized years ago? We could have had so much time to rebuild our relationship.

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I would toss and turn, trying all my tricks to get to sleep. I laid my hands flat, open, underneath my pillow. I smoothed my hair behind my ears, I bent my legs slightly, and I swept my foot back and forth, caressing the sheet. I stilled my breathing, then matched it to the motion of my foot. I willed myself to breathe deeper, to let go ...

- - - - - - - -

I wasn't surprised, but clearly everyone else was. I looked again at the bundle in my arms. I felt joyful and tender as I rearranged the tiny blanket around her. I cooed to her, my little sweetheart. She didn't stir, still exhausted from the delivery.

I said quietly to the room, "You could be happy for me."

The nurse said, "It's a kitten. You delivered a kitten."

"She's beautiful," I said. Then more firmly, "We're going to be fine."

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"Subject got his USC wife 'Hapai' [Hawaiian for pregnant] and although they were married they do not live together and Miss Dunham is making arrangements with the Salvation Army to give the baby away," read a memo written by an administrator at the Honolulu office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The memo, which dates from April 1961, was released by the Homeland Security Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request made by the author.

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"But no one in the family plays saxophone," I chuckled to myself. "They must have meant 'trombone' or 'trumpet.' "

Then I thought: "I wonder if one of the boys is thinking about switching instruments."

Then -- because five of our nine children were adopted at older ages from orphanages abroad, including the 13-year-old boy from Bulgaria and the 11- , 13- and 14- year old boys from Ethiopia -- I thought: "They can't spell."

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Because discriminating against people based on many of those categories is why they get up in the morning, these culture warriors instructed their minions to flood the Virginia Department of Social Services with their comments. And in order to get everyone nice and mad, people like Maggie Gallagher and the foot soldiers of other religious right and anti-gay groups told everyone that these rules would force god-fearing child-placement group to shutter their doors rather than give children to deviant homosexuals (or atheists). And then the children would suffer!

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Luckily, it's nothing serious. In fact, I wanted to file this case. Everyone else is delighted for us, but my wife, Ann, and I are just gritting our teeth until it's over. We can't help worrying that something will go dreadfully wrong, even though we're certain to get what we want in the end. But it's impossible to avoid white-knuckled anxiety when the stakes are so high: I'm petitioning the court to adopt my own son.

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Rep. Anthony Weiner may have joked about "mandatory gay marriage," at the WH Correspondents dinner, but amazingly, Virginia’s Dept. of Social Services is proposing new regulations that would require all adoption and foster-care agencies to do gay adoptions.

Today is the last day to comment on these regs, if you are in Virginia or an expert on why driving competent foster care and adoption agencies out of business hurts children.

Huh. This is about Virginia's proposed new "Minimum Standards for Licensed Private Child-Placing Agencies," which seem to be mostly about clarifying and in many cases simplifying existing regulations. But there is that secret "mandatory gay adoption" trap, buried deep within. Here's the relevant text from the proposed new regulations:

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The blueprint of my adoption has shaped my life. When my best kindergarten friend and I were put in two different first-grade classrooms, and she went on to make other friends, I was bereft. I felt left behind. No other little girl could take her place. The prospect of making new friends, and losing them, was overwhelming. Reading books, drawing pictures and daydreaming were much safer.

My adoptive parents and sister (their biological child) loved me, and I loved them, but I always felt apart: It was the three of them ... and then me. As I pitched forward into the throes of adolescence, and everything my parents did was heinous and pissed me off, I retreated into a parallel universe, where I imagined what life might be like if I lived with my birth mother. Was she a countess? A movie star? Surely we would look exactly alike and understand each other completely.

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Gov. Charlie Crist, who supported the ban until his recent Independent conversion, says he will immediately disregard the 33-year-old law. He even heralded this as "a great day for children" since "children deserve a loving home." Indeed, the court's 35-page opinion argued:

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Sword, it seems, is asking herself the very same question. Her lawyer recently told the press: "When she saw this boy, something just touched off in her -- and it wasn't a mother-son relationship, it was a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship." 

Regardless of how it felt to the 36-year-old, it was clearly a case of child sexual abuse. That said, it does bring up a lesser discussed, and certainly rarer, phenomenon: Attraction between close biological relatives who first meet as adults. Genetic sexual attraction, as it's called, was first dubbed in the 1980s by Barbara Gonyo, author of the memoir "I'm His Mother, But He's Not My Son." She gave up her son for adoption at the young age of 16 and reunited with him when she was 42 and he was 26. "When I found him, I found my feelings were very strange and I was very upset," Gonyo told Salon. "It felt like falling in love" -- and, eventually, she found she wasn't the only one having this taboo experience.

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