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An estimated four million gay men and lesbians are raising eight-to-ten million children in the United States. A November 2001 Kaiser Family Foundation poll revealed that of 405 self-identified gay, lesbian and bisexual adults, 11 percent had children under 18 living with them. Only eight percent were the legal gardian. The poll also found that 49 percent of the gay people who were not parents said they would like to have children someday. Usually invisible in the mainstream media, lesbian …

…If a child is not their next-of-kin, they may not be able to get workplace medical benefits for a child. In the event the legal parent becomes ill or dies, the surviving partner could lose any ability to be the child's guardian, even though the surviving partner may have been the one who devoted most of their time raising the child. Same-sex couples want to protect their children by securing legal relationships with both parents.