brave women

Linda Stay, a Utah mother of two gay kids, is calling on other parents with GLBT children to join her in fighting for equality for their sons and daughters. Stay advises on her website, "Share who your children are with your friends, your co-workers, your siblings, with everyone. When you hear derogatory comments about gay or lesbian people ... all you need to say is, ‘I have a gay son or a lesbian daughter.

Edie and Tamar Love [pictured] have been raising kids together for several years. They recently registered for a recreational family pass at the University of Memphis but were turned away because there was no legal document to prove their union.

Community members learned that the family was denied a family pass and several people contacted U of M to complain. As a result, the university is changing it's policy that requires marriage certificates for family membership plans.

President Barack Obama apologized by phone to a woman prevented from seeing her dying partner at Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Just a few years ago, Janice Langbehn [left] pleaded with doctors to get hospital visitation - as her partner of 17 years slipped into a coma. Eight hours passed before Langbehn would be allowed into the Trauma Center. By then, she could only say her final farewell as a priest performed the last rites on 39-year-old Lisa Marie Pond [right].

HuffPost reports:

"Anne Hathaway's family left the Catholic Church because of its intolerance of homosexuality. Anne grew up wanting to become a nun but shunned Catholicism when she learned her older brother, Michael, was gay."

ProudParenting had the opportunity to learn more about surrogacy from a woman who carried twins for a couple. Dawn [pictured] says that she enjoys being pregnant, her husband and family are supportive - and her friends are curious and concerned.

Lesbian mom Meredith Baxter comes out of the closet

Meredith Baxter came-out on the ''Today'' show - looking fabulous at 63-years old.

Baxter is probably best known for her seven years playing TV mom Elyse Keaton on Family Ties from 1982-1989 [171 episodes].

People offers a quick interview with Kelly McGillis, the most recent successful entertainer to come out as a lesbian.:

The woman who made many a male’s heart flutter as the sultry flight instructor in Top Gun has been married twice and has two children. But she says she's actually been a lesbian most of her life. "I tried really hard not to be who I am. I tried super hard," she says. "It was a difficult journey for me to come to terms and be whole and happy with who I am."