Homosexuals find door to adoption sometimes open.(Chicago Tribune)

LOS ANGELES _ Like any new mother, Laurie Alessandra gushes when she talks about her twin 3-year-old daughters, Alisha and Aliece.

"They are such a joy and so happy," Alessandra said, quickly adding, "and it's not only me saying that. Everybody says the same thing."

Alessandra and her partner, Anne Tritt, were the first lesbian couple to adopt children under a new California statute that allows both partners in a same-sex domestic relationship to individually adopt the same child.

The California law, among the most sweeping such statutes in the nation, went into effect last October, a month before Alessandra and Tritt adopted their daughters. It provides protections that gays and lesbians believe vital for them in maintaining stable and secure family relationships at a time when more of them are becoming parents.

But while more same-sex couples are raising families, it is not a trend embraced or applauded by most Americans.

A storm of protest arose recently over a segment on the youth-oriented Nickelodeon cable channel about the experiences of children growing up with gay or lesbian couples.

Nickelodeon received an estimated 100,000 e-mails and phone calls protesting the decision to air "Nick News Special Edition: My Family is Different," which was denounced by the conservative Traditional Values Coalition.