Oregon AG Slams “Family Stability” Argument Against Marriage Equality

Mombian.com – March 21, 2014

This week, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed a response in the federal case to determine whether same-sex couples can marry in the Beaver State. She supports equality for many reasons, but her remarks on the children-related arguments of equality opponents are particularly scathing.

Rosenblum starts by asserting, “Family stability is a legitimate state interest, but one that is not furthered by limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples,” and offering four reasons:

  1. Oregon does not tie marriage rights or inducements to procreation;
  2. Oregon has never limited its legal protections to only the biological children of opposite-sex couples;
  3. permitting same-sex couples to marry does not reduce the likelihood that opposite-sex couples will enter into stable relationships; and
  4. the same-sex marriage ban harms the children in those families.

She then picks apart each of these arguments. I’ll spare you most of the details, but I’m rather fond of one statement against number 3: “There is no evidence or even rational speculation that permitting same-sex couples to marry will in any way reduce the desire of opposite-sex couples to marry and create stable families.”

– See more at: http://www.mombian.com/2014/03/21/oregon-ag-slams-family-stability-argument-against-marriage-equality/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mombian+%28Mombian%29#sthash.gnhIljJx.dpuf

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in In the News / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

This ‘Expert’ Claims Gay Parents Are Bad For Kids, But Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Listen

The Huffington Post  | by  Kate Abbey-Lambertz

– March 4, 2014

An expert witness in the federal trial on Michigan’s gay marriage ban who found that same-sex relationships have a negative effect on children was denounced by his own university.

Sociologist Mark Regnerus was a witness for the state of Michigan, which is being challenged on its gay marriage ban. The author of a controversial 2012 study, Regnerus found that children who grew up in a house where a parent eventually had a same-sex relationship had more difficulties and said that the lack of evidence on the effects of same-sex relationships is a reason for the state to proceed with caution when it comes to legalizing gay marriage.

“Until we get more evidence, we should be skeptical. … It’s prudent for the state to retain its definition of marriage to one man, one woman,” Regnerus said during his testimony in the case Monday, according to the Associated Press.

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in Legal / Parenting / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Della Wolf is B.C.’s 1st child with 3 parents on birth certificate

By Catherine Rolfsen, CBC News – 2/10/2014

A Vancouver baby has just become the first child in British Columbia with three parents listed on a birth certificate.

Three-month-old Della Wolf Kangro Wiley Richards is the daughter of lesbian parents and their male friend.

“It feels really just natural and easy, like any other family,” said biological father Shawn Kangro. “It doesn’t feel like anything is strange about it.”

B.C.’s new Family Law Act, which came into effect last year, allows for three or even more parents.

Della’s family is the first to go through the process, and they finalized the birth certificate registration last week.

B.C., which is celebrating Family Day on Monday, is the first province in Canada with legislation to allow three parents on a birth certificate, although it’s been achieved elsewhere through litigation.

Moms wanted a dad, not just a donor.

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in In the News / International / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

‘Do it yourself’ surrogate pregnancy ends in legal chaos with three-year-old boy effectively having two mothers

The Daily Mail – by Louise Eccles, March 5, 2014

A judge has warned of the dangers of informal surrogacy agreements after a woman found she had no parental rights to the baby she had asked her friend to conceive with her husband.

The ‘do it yourself’-style surrogate pregnancy ended in the High Court after the boy, now three, was effectively left with two mothers.

Unable to have children of her own, a woman asked a close friend to be artificially inseminated at home with her husband’s sperm.

But when the woman’s marriage broke down months after the birth of the child, she found she had no parental rights because she was not the boy’s legal or biological mother.

Yesterday, she was granted a residency order to care for the child, but the judge warned against anyone considering an informal surrogacy agreement, rather than through a professional agency.

Describing the case as a ‘cautionary tale’, Mrs Justice Eleanor King underlined the ‘real dangers’ of private surrogacy agreements and urged couples to use licensed and regulated fertility clinics.

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in In the News / International / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Straight Talk From a Lesbian Mom

HuffPost Gay Blog by Judy Appel

I am a real live lesbian mom. My wife and I have been together for 23 years, way back before we could even think of being wives. We have a 16-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter.

We are pretty much like any of you and your families. We get up every morning, make lunches for our kids and then scramble to get them out the door to school on time. Then, my wife Alison and I rush off to work, texting when we can catch a moment during our busy days to navigate the chores and details of dinner, shopping, dentist appointments and the ever changing complexities of our kids’ schedules. At the end of our work day, we rush home, make dinner, help with homework and, like many other parents these days, nag our kids to put away their electronic devices. When we are lucky, they share their struggles and their triumphs with us. And, in between all of this, we worry about our kids. Actually, we worry all the time, for all the reasons every parent does.

We are fortunate in that we live in a place where our kids are growing up in an oasis of inclusion, with a community of friends and family that span the rainbow of sexual orientation, gender identity, race and class. Inside our bubble there is a culture of acceptance. Lesbian moms are hardly worth noticing, certainly far less noteworthy to our children and their friends than our questionable fashion choices or embarrassing dance moves.

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in Family Stories / Parenting / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Utah Attorney General Makes Gay Adoption Harder

HuffPost Gay Voices

It is more difficult for newly married same-sex couples in Utah to adopt, according to lawyers handling such cases, after the attorney general on Monday began urging judges to reject adoption applications from same-sex couples.

“It feels terrible,” said Kathy Harbin, who married her partner of nine years in Salt Lake City last December, a few days after a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. “The state acts like, if it puts all of these things in place that stop us, there won’t be any gay parents. I don’t think they know that there are thousands of us who already have children and all they’re doing is making it harder for us to give them all the things that parents want to give their kids.”

Harbin and Michelle Call wedded with the hope that Harbin could adopt the two young boys the couple is raising together. But less than two weeks later, the Supreme Court agreed to the state’s request to stop same-sex marriages until an appeals court hears the case in April. In the meantime, nearly 1,400 couples who wed in those weeks are stuck in legal limbo — uncertain whether the state will eventually recognize their unions.

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in Adoption / In the News / Second Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 0 comments