This article deals with the challenges faced by gay families in several U.S. states in July 2005. Boxes are stacked in the garage, the walls are barren, and an air mattress on the den floor serves as bed for the night in the Orlando, Florida home of Janine Kirchgassner, 45 and Julia Robertson, 43, and their children, Jessica, 6, and Matthew, 4. Determined to keep hopping state to state until they find home, a place where they feel secure and valued as a family, they have jumped from Texas to Florida and now from Florida to Vermont. Kirchgassner and Robertson are among the millions of gay people with children who face uncertainty fueled by sea of ever-changing state laws and statutes. Hence, the results of many of the anti gay measures on state ballots affect the children as much as anyone, making some of them legal orphans or robbing them of basic rights such as access to a parent's Social Security benefits should the parent die. However, in the District of Columbia and eight states, Connecticut, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, allow same-sex couples to complete a second-parent adoption, which makes a same-sex partner the legal parent of a child without affecting the parental status of other partner.