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Washington, DC, January 12, 2011 /LGBT News/ In a switch intended to expand recognition of different family models, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered the State Department to amend a bureaucratic change that would have replaced "mother" and "father" with “mother or parent 1” and “father or parent 2” on U.S. passport applications.

"The government is finally recognizing the reality that many children are being raised by same-sex parents," said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a group that helped push for the change. "This is just one form, but there are hundreds of government forms that need to be changed to reflect the realities of the modern family."

Originally the State Department had intended to scrub the terms “father” and “mother” from the applications completely, but after news broke about the change, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped in to make it less controversial by retaining the terms father and mother, while also offering the “parent 1” and “parent 2” terminology.

Clinton has been a forceful advocate for gay rights and in 2009 moved to give gay diplomats, their partners and families the same benefits that heterosexual diplomats and their families receive. That step at the State Department preceded a similar government-wide move announced by the White House.

The new passport applications will be available online next month.