A couple of news items grabbed my attention a few days ago. But it was more for what they didn’t report than for what they did.

The first involved a veteran CEO’s report to the stockholders of his big company. “Times are good,” he was able to report truthfully. The consensus in the room was that the economy is good and that the new tax laws are favorable. But then, conceding that there were also a few dark clouds on the horizon, the executive stopped short of what seems to me might have been a very helpful analysis.

FORT WORTH, Texas—One of America’s leading adoption institutions is violating the trust of its Christian supporters by hopping on the LGBT bandwagon. Officers of the Gladney Center for Adoption have told its board of directors and staff that they are now accepting homosexual parents as clients but have held off making a public announcement.

Reviews for children’s books are not high on the list of cultural indicators. Yet, as the primary resource for library and bookstore buyers, who in turn funnel books into the hands of kids and parents, they’re worth noticing. That’s why this particular book review sounded an ominous note, even though the book in question seemed as sunny and blameless as a church picnic.

Last month saw a flurry of responses to a strange blog post by feminist Jody Allard. Allard has two teenage sons, whom she described as “strong and compassionate—the kind of boys other parents are glad to meet when their daughters bring them home for dinner.” But “other parents” don’t know these boys the way their mother does. She finds their cavalier attitude toward her fears of the rape culture very disturbing. Their “Oh come on, Mom” refrains prompted her to write a piece for The Washington Post last September, which in turn provoked a domestic backlash.

Four married lesbian couples in Tennessee are fighting a new state law they say denies their parental rights.

The couples, each expecting a baby this year, filed a lawsuit last week against a law mandating that undefined words in state statutes be interpreted to have “natural and ordinary” meanings. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed the measure into law May 5. 

When the Boy Scouts of America decided to accept gay scouts, many Christian families, some with rich histories in Scouting, became concerned. Those concerns turned to alarm as the Boy Scouts allowed gay adult leaders, and, most recently, transgender youth. Those families worked to form Trail Life USA in 2014 as a Christian alternative to Boy Scouts. I spoke with Trail Life USA CEO Mark Hancock at the group’s headquarters, Camp Aiken, in South Carolina.

SAN FRANCISCO—The 10th-floor ballroom of San Francisco’s Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel has high, coffered ceilings and baroque-style drapes and chandeliers. As 250 men in business casual filled the room early this year for the city’s fourth annual “Surrogacy Conference and Expo,” all eyes were on four female panelists at the front. The topic: how gay men can have babies using surrogates.