Will Obergefell Survive The New Supreme Court? The Answer is Yes… For Now

Will Obergefell survive the new Supreme Court?

12/14/2020 – IMPORTANT UPDATE

This morning the Supreme Court denied the Indiana Attorney General’s petition in the Henderson v. Box case.  This is very good news for fans of equality.  This signals the court’s willingness to uphold the Obergefell decision and allow marriage equality and family equality to apply to same-sex couples!!

My Original Article

This is the greatest concern / fear of many in the LGBTQ community.  From the moment we learned of the heartbreaking death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this question became the most frequently asked by scholars, activists, lawyers and members of the LGBTQ community.  What started as a hypothetical question became real on Monday, November 23, 2020.Will Obergefell survive the new Supreme Court

What happened? 

The Attorney General for the state of Indiana petitioned The Supreme Court in the case of Box v. Henderson, which poses the question, “Does a married same-sex parent have the same rights as a heterosexual married parent in regards to the presumption of parentage which attaches to marriage?”  The presumption of parentage is the rule of law that creates a legal relationship between the spouse of a woman who gives birth to a child and the child to the spouse of the birth mother.  How does this effect the Obergefell decision, which made marriage equality the law of the land in June of 2015?  The answer to that question poses serious issues of equality and judicial conduct that we are just beginning to understand.

What did Obergefell say?

Will Obergefell survive the new Supreme Court?  First, we need to understand exactly what Obergefell said.  In the Obergefell decision, the court stated not only that all states must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, that other states must recognize same-sex marriage licenses and that same-sex couples are entitled to marriage, “on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.”  That means that all protections, including the marital presumption of parentage, shall redound to same-sex married couples. 

Judicial bias?

The arrival of Box v. Henderson at The. Supreme Court is questionable for a few reasons.  First, the case was last heard in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a conservative three judge panel unanimously upheld the protections conferred in Obergefell to the 8 plaintiff married couples who are the heart of this case.  But, they waited 3 years to issue an opinion.  The average time between when this court hears a case and when it issues its decision is 3 months.  If this case was handled in the normal time frame, it would have been before a Supreme Court that had already decided this issue twice before in favor of extending all marriage rights to same-sex couples.  But now the court make-up is different, which leads me to the second issue that raises concern: the current Supreme Court requested that the Indiana Attorney General make the Writ of Certiorari, the petition to hear the case, directly.  Why would a court that has twice decided an issue ask to rehear that same issue?

Will Obergefell survive the new Supreme CourtThe court first decided this issue in Obergefell, and then again in 2017 in the case, Pavan v. Smith.  In Pavan, the court held that states must issue birth certificates to same-sex couples in the same manner they issue them to opposite-sex couples.  This means that the presumption of parentage (once referred to as the presumption of paternity) would make the father of a child born to his wife, even if that child was conceived with donor sperm, the legal parent of that child.  The 8 plaintiff couples in the Box case are asking the court to have the presumption apply to their marriages the same way it applies to heterosexual married couples, even when there is not a biological connection between the spouse of the mother and the child. 

To answer the question, “will Obergefell survive the new Supreme Court?”, we must look to the strained strategy of the Indiana Attorney General, Curtis Hill.  Hill is falsely declaring that a state should have the ability to acknowledge the, “biological distinction between males and females.”  He is inferring that because only a man and a woman can biologically have a child together, only an opposite-sex married couple should have the protections that the martial presumption of parentage applies.  Furthermore, one plaintiff couple in the Box case includes a woman who donated her egg to her partner who then gave birth.  Both parents are “related” to the child under the law. 

States rights

This insidious “state’s rights” approach gives the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the ones who asked for this case to be heard in the first place, the ability to drive a wedge directly into the heart of marriage equality.  If the conservative Supreme Court sides with Indiana in Box, it will allow other states the ability to make distinctions between same-sex marriage and opposite-sex marriage.  It would mandate that same-sex parents go through a costly and invasive adoption process to secure their legal right as a family.  What the court would fail to realize is that the children would be the victims of this strategy.  Leaving a child in legal limbo only serves to create insecurity in that child’s family. 

Will Obergefell survive the new Supreme Court?  We will soon get a clue.  The new Supreme Court recently heard the case of Fulton v. The City of Philadelphia, which asked whether, among other questions, the government violates the First Amendment by defining a religious agency’s ability to participate in the state sponsored foster-care system mandating the inclusion of same-sex couples as foster parents.  This religious liberty approach to equality, I fear, will be the first sign of the new Supreme Court’s willingness to strip the rights of same-sex couples away. 

What can we do?

If there is anything to learn from this potentially disturbing road that the court appears to be heading down, it is to fight at your local level to ensure that protections are in place and that equality in marriage is preserved.  Do everything you can now to prepare for the worst: get your estate plan in place, petition for a step-parent adoption or birth order if your state allows and start telling all of your friends and family about what is going on. While we may have thought that battle was a thing of the past, we are still warriors.  We have always had to fight to protect our relationships and families, we know how to do it. 

Anthony M. Brown, Esq. – www.timeforfamilies.com November 28, 2020

in Anonymous/Known Donation / Estate Planning / Featured Articles / Known Donor / Legal / Religious / Second Parent Adoption / Supreme Court  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same Sex Parents Still Face Legal Complications

At gay pride marches around the country this month, there will be celebrations of marriage, a national right that, at just two years old, feels freshly exuberant to many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

But while questions of marriage are largely settled, same sex parents still face a patchwork of laws around the country that define who is and who can be a parent. This introduces a rash of complications about where L.G.B.T.Q. couples may want to live and how they form their families, an array of uncertainties straight couples do not have to think about.

“There are very different laws from state to state in terms of how parents are protected, especially if they’re unmarried,” said Cathy Sakimura, deputy director and family law director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “You can be completely respected and protected as a family in one state and be a complete legal stranger to your children in another. To know that you could drive into another state and not be considered a parent anymore, that’s a pretty terrifying situation.”gay parents adoption

Adoption laws, for example, can be extremely contradictory. In some states, like Maryland and Massachusetts, adoption agencies are expressly prohibited from discriminating based on sexual orientation. At the same time, other states, like South Dakota, have laws that create religious exemptions for adoption providers, allowing agencies to refuse to place children in circumstances that violate the groups’ religious beliefs.

Alan Solano, a state senator in South Dakota, sponsored his state’s adoption legislation. He said he was concerned that if those groups were forced to let certain families adopt, they might get out of the adoption business entirely, shrinking the number of placement agencies in the state.

“I wanted to ensure that we have the greatest number of providers that are working on placing children,” Mr. Solano said. “I’m not coming out and saying that somebody in the L.G.B.T. community should not be eligible for getting a child placed with them. What I hope is that we have organizations out there that are ready and willing to assist them in doing these adoptions.”

But as a practical matter, lawyers who specialize in L.G.B.T.Q. family law say that in some areas, religiously affiliated adoption organizations are the only ones within a reasonable distance. Moreover, they say, such laws harm children who need homes by narrowing the pool of people who can adopt them, and they are discriminatory.

“There is a very serious hurt caused when you’re told, ‘No, we don’t serve your kind here,’ and I think that gets lost in the public discourse a lot,” said Susan Sommer, director of constitutional litigation for Lambda Legal. “There’s just this narrative that absolutely ignores, and almost dehumanizes, L.G.B.T. people. They’re missing from the equation here.”

There are a number of laws that can affect L.G.B.T.Q. families, from restrictions on surrogacy to custody, and the landscape is constantly shifting.

by Elizabeth A. Harris, New York Times – June 20, 2017

Click here to read the entire article.

in Legal / Parenting / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same-Sex Parents Still Face Obstacles Under New York’s Standing Rules

Prior to the tragic events of Sunday, June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida, one might have felt optimistic about the evolving societal acceptance of and respect for same-sex parents and the corresponding progressive state of family and matrimonial law.

We shared in the sense of uplift from the recent United States Supreme Court decisions in United States v. Windsor and, especially, in Obergefell. v. Hodges, decided a little over one year ago on June 26, 2015. Obergefell dealt in sweeping fashion with discriminatory and unconstitutional objections to marriage for same-sex couples. As set forth in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s dramatic and moving language, the need for same-sex parents, and the children of those relationships, to be granted the social dignity and the many societal benefits that go along with stepping into the light of mainstream acceptance by virtue of a nationwide right to marry is required by the equal protection mandates of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.gay parents adoption

In concluding that its “analysis compels the conclusion that same-sex couples may exercise the right to marry,” 576 U.S. 12 (2015), the Supreme Court in Obergefell detailed not just the importance of being able to enter the institution of marriage, but the need for same-sex couples to do so on fully equal footing as other couples, through the front door, and stressed in its exhaustive analysis that the focus should not be on how these couples love, but that they love and wish for that love to be reflected in their social standing.

Choices about marriage shape an individual’s destiny. As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has explained, because “it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition. Goodridge, 440 Mass., at 322, 798 N.E. 2d at 955″ cited at 576 U.S. 13 (2015).

As this court held in Lawrence, same sex couples have the same right as opposite-sex couples to enjoy intimate association. Lawrence invalidated laws that made same-sex intimacy a criminal act. And it acknowledged that “[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. 539 U.S. at 567. But while Lawrence confirmed a dimension of freedom that allows individuals to engage in intimate association without criminal liability, it does not follow that freedom stops there. Outlaw to outcast may be a step forward, but it does not achieve the full promise of liberty.

576 U.S. at 14.

Further, Justice Kennedy singled out the importance of the right to marry to the children of these relationships.

Excluding same sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families to be somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.

576 at U.S. 15.

In New York, the passage of the Marriage Equality Act in 2011 directed that all of the laws, benefits and obligations bestowed by the Domestic Relations Law with regard to marriage be read and implemented without regard to sexual orientation, and, if necessary to do that, in a gender neutral way.

Section 10-a. Parties to a marriage.

1. A marriage that is otherwise valid shall be valid regardless of whether the parties to the marriage are of the same or different sex.

2. No government treatment or legal status, effect, right, benefit, privilege, protection or responsibility relating to marriage, whether deriving from statute, administrative or court rule, public policy, common law or any other source of law, shall differ based on the parties to the marriage being or having been of the same sex rather than a different sex. When necessary to implement the rights and responsibilities of spouses under the law, all gender specific language or terms shall be construed in a gender-neutral manner in all such sources of law.

Yet, despite the passage of the Marriage Equality Act and the newfound nationwide ability to marry, the courts in New York are contending with circumstances in which same-sex families were formed and children brought into them by using strategies that pre-date the ability of same-sex couples to marry. This approach has potentially devastating consequences when those families and their respective rights are addressed in divorce and family court proceedings. These problems arise from, and the courts continue to wrestle with the vestiges of, a rule established by the New York Court of Appeals a generation ago in Alison D. v. Virginia M., 77 N.Y.2d 651 (1991), which set the stage for categorical discrimination against same-sex parents based upon their lack of a biological or adoptive relationship to a child.

The impact of Alison D. was eroded somewhat by the Court of Appeals decision in Debra H. v. Janice R., 14 N.Y.3d 576 (2010), which, through application of comity, recognized parental standing of a non-biological non-adoptive parent in 2010 based upon Vermont’s judicially created rules granting standing based upon the couple’s civil union in Vermont. However, without the right to marry or enter into a civil union in New York at the time, children of unmarried same-sex couples in New York were not afforded the same benefits and protections.

This discrimination is not so easily remedied by the directives of the Marriage Equality Act because many of the parents involved in these situation were not or are not married at the time that their children are born and because the conceptual framework for the denial of standing is based upon a biologically based terminology that is found throughout the family and matrimonial law. This terminology reflects a fixation with the biomechanics of conception, a fixation which runs deeper than mere gender assumptions. Instead of a focus on the “best interest” of children, which is the bedrock determination of all other matters related to their custody and welfare in New York matrimonial and family law, the New York Supreme, Family and Surrogate’s Courts continue to trip over the threshold issues of “standing” when it comes to same-sex parents because of references to “birth” parents or the heterosexual and gender assumptions implied by the use of the word “paternity.” For example, a “paternity” test directed in Family Court proceeding continues to only apply to men and only to establish the biological relationship of men to children obviously born to women. Perforce, this excludes same-sex couples.

By Meg Canby and Caroline Krauss Browne

law.com

Click here to read the entire article.

in Legal / Parenting / Recently Added / Second Parent Adoption / Step Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 2 comments

Same-Sex Parents (and Our Kids) Speak Out

Same-sex relationship recognition is up for a vote in both Italy and Switzerland in the coming weeks—and same-sex parents are, not surprisingly, helping to push for equality. And in Australia, one 11-year-old girl is speaking out for her family.

Italy’s civil union bill comes up for a vote next Tuesday, and includes a provision that would allow for second-parent (or stepchild) adoptions. Martina and Julia, a same-sex parents of an infant live in Rome and were profiled in Vanity Fair Italy about their family. They discuss the 13 attempts in two countries (Denmark and England) to create their son, the community they found through the national organization for LGBT parents, Famiglie Arcobaleno (Rainbow Families), how they have tried to legally protect their family, and their response to those who oppose equality for families like theirs. (Google Translate does a decent, though not perfect, job for those who don’t read Italian.)

mombian

The New York Times, in its coverage of the Italian civil union debate, also led with a parenting story, that of Dario De Gregorio and Andrea Rubera. The men married in Canada, became parents of three children, then returned to their native Italy where their relationship was not recognized and custody of their children was divided because they could not adopt each other’s biological kids. The stepchild adoption provision of the civil union bill, however, may be “too far-reaching” for some legislators, the NYT reports.

CNN followed the NYT and a few days later dug further into De Gregorio and Rubera’s story in “Gay dads hope Italy approves law on same-sex civil unions and parenthood.” Rubera told CNN that opponents of civil unions say “You stole your kids, you stole your kids from their mother. You denied to your kids to have a mother, you bought your kids from the supermarket like watermelons.” He adds, “It’s difficult to imagine if you aren’t living in Italy … how strong and awful the public debate about civil unions has become.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Mombian.com, January 29, 2016

in International / Parenting / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same Sex Partners on Birth Certificates Halted

same sex partnersArkansas Supreme Court Halts Birth Certificates For Same Sex Partners

The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a lower court order that allowed same sex partners throughout the state to be listed as parents on the birth certificates of their children. It let stand the birth certificates obtained by three lesbian couples who had challenged the Arkansas Health Department Vital Statistics Bureau’s refusal to identify the three couples as the adoptive or biological parents of their respective children.

Same sex partners had a previous victory with Little Rock Circuit Judge

They won approval for their listing as parents in a narrow decision by Little Rock Circuit Judge Tim Fox. The same judge then issued another decision extending that recognition statewide. The state appealed the decision that allowed same-sex partners statewide to be listed, saying it conflicted with Arkansas statutes and left birth registrars in legal limbo.

The state Supreme Court agreed and said that “the best course of action is to preserve the status quo with regard to the statutory provisions while we consider the circuit court’s ruling.”

On Dec. 1, Judge Fox held that a state law restricting parentage identification to heterosexual couples was unconstitutional in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this year legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.

“(The) decision affords the plaintiffs, as same sex partners, the same constitutional rights with respect to the issuance of birth certificates and amended birth certificates as opposite-sex couples,” Fox wrote at the time.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

Hufingtonpost.com, December 11, 2015 – by Steve Barnes

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

Same Sex Parenting Cases: Evidence Over Ideology?

Evidence Over Ideology in Same Sex Parenting Cases?

Last Friday, a Utah judge reversed an order in a same sex parenting cases, he had issued just three days earlier that would have removed a young girl from her home because her foster parents are lesbians. Under fierce pressure that even included grumbling by the state’s Republican governor, Judge Scott Johansen issued a temporary reversal after first ruling that it was “not in the best interest of children to be raised by same-sex couples.” The shift is good news for the girl and her foster parents, April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce; for child welfare advocates; and for anyone concerned with fairness, equality, or evidence-based policy.

Evidence should trump ideology when deciding on same sex parenting cases

Yet the matter is far from over. Johansen set a December date for the girl’s fate to be argued at a hearing. And the judge’s revised order left intact a critical foundation of his initial reasoning: what the judge still calls “a concern that research has shown that children are more emotionally and mentally stable when raised by a mother and father in the same home.”

Hoagland and Peirce told a news station they believe the judge relied on his religious beliefs to make his decision, something that would be plainly unconstitutional. Does the judge have any sound reason to give straight couples preference over same-sex ones?

Asked in court to cite any of the “myriad” studies he reportedly referenced in ruling against the same-sex couple, Johansen declined. And for good reason: There are none. A research team I direct, based at Columbia Law School, conducted one of the most exhaustive analyses of peer-reviewed studies on same-sex parenting published over the last 30 years. Our initiative, the What We Know Project, started with the question, “What does the scholarly research say about the well being of children with gay or lesbian parents?” Our results, which are constantly updated as new research emerges, are posted at our site, with links to the studies or their abstracts.

What did we find? Currently, there are 77 scholarly articles that address this question. Of those, 73—the vast majority—found that children raised in same-sex parenting homes fare just as well as their peers. Could the four outliers be the “myriad” studies Johansen is referencing? Not if he’s done an ounce of homework and is being remotely honest about what the research says. For starters, basing a ruling that breaks a family apart on four studies that are contradicted by 73 others is questionable on its face. But equally important, these four studies do not actually prove what their authors claim they do, and anyone who looks at them closely can see that.

Reviewing the studies clarifies that they all suffer from the same fundamental flaw: While the authors tout the importance of large, random samples and imply that that’s what they’re using, they in fact rely on samples that are anything but. Here’s how this works: They start with very large samples that come from a reliable dataset like the census. In some cases the original sample is as large as several million people. Out of this much ballyhooed sample size, researchers struggle to identify families in which a stable, same-sex couple raised children from infancy—the relevant standard, since what’s usually being debated, as in the Utah case, is whether such a couple ought to be allowed to parent. So researchers create their own definitions for what constitutes an “LGB” family, and they are uniformly very loose. In some cases they just ask children if a parent ever had a same-sex relationship and throw the “yes” kids into a category called “LGBT families”—even though they are a world apart from a situation in which children are raised by a stable, same-sex couple. This is not to say one type of family is superior to another, just that we must compare apples to apples to yield any useful conclusions about same-sex parenting. (Many of the gay-supportive studies also use small samples, but their authors don’t suggest otherwise, and—most important—they are actually studying children raised by same-sex parents.)

Click here to read the entire article.

by Nathaniel Frank, Slate.com
in Ethics / Foster Care / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Same Sex Parenting: OK Supreme Court Landmark Ruling

Same Sex Parenting Wins Increased Rights in Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a landmark ruling same sex parenting increasing the rights of noncustodial parents who have been in same-sex relationships. The decision acknowledged the rights of a non-biological parent in a same-sex relationship who has acted as a parent.

The state’s high court ruled that an Oklahoma County judge improperly dismissed the case of Oklahoma City resident Charlene Ramey. The court reversed that decision and remanded the case for further proceedings so Ramey could pursue a hearing on custody and visitation of the child, who was born in 2005. Ramey was in a same-sex relationship with Kimberly Sutton. At the time of the relationship, Oklahoma did not recognize same-sex marriages, which changed following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year not to take up an appeal of Oklahoma’s marriage-equality lawsuit ruling.

The couple agreed to have a child, born by Sutton with a donor. Sutton and Ramey later separated after almost 10 years of same sex parenting, as co-parents. Sutton denied Ramey’s status as a parent and sought to end all interaction between Ramey and the child, according to the opinion.

“Ramey, the plaintiff, is not a mere ‘third party’ like a nanny, friend, or relative, as suggested by the district court,” the ruling states. “On the contrary, Ramey has been intimately involved in the conception, birth and parenting of their child, at the request and invitation of Sutton. Ramey has stood in the most sacred role as parent to their child and always been referred to as ‘mom’ by their child.”

The decision is intended to recognize same-sex couples who, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court legalization of same-sex marriage, entered into committed relationships, engaged in family planning with the intent to parent jointly and share those responsibilities, the ruling states.

“Public policy dictates that the district court consider the best interests of the child and extend standing to the non-biological parent to pursue hearings on custody and visitation,” the ruling says.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

by Barbara Hoberock, November 18, 2015 TulsaWorld.com

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

Colombia’s Gay Adoptions Ruling

Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruling found that barring gay adoptions had deprived children of the right to be raised by families.

In a landmark gay adoptions ruling that eliminated a glaringly discriminatory policy, Colombia’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that gay individuals and couples may adopt children. In a 6-to-2 decision, the Constitutional Court found that barring gay people from adopting had unreasonably deprived children of the right to be raised by families.

The decision was the latest victory for gay activists in Colombia who have challenged discriminatory policies in a string of smartly litigated cases. The ruling will make it easier for gay individuals and couples to adopt children in state foster care. It also will allow people to be legally recognized as the parent of a same-sex partner’s biological child.

Anticipating criticism from political and religious leaders, the justices wrote that “doubts and fears about whether society is ready to accept this decision won’t be dissipated by being blind to an irrefutable reality.” The judges argued that there was no evidence that same-sex couples were unfit parents and no compelling reason to bar them from the universe of potential adoptive families.

Wednesday’s decision sparked criticism from Catholic Church leaders, who argued that the issue should have been decided by Congress or approved in a referendum. While some Colombian lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to expand the rights of gay people, those initiatives have stalled. The country’s top court has picked up the slack. In doing so, it has set a commendable example in a region where gay people continue to face widespread discrimination and scorn.

Click here to read the entire article.

A version of this editorial appears in print on November 10, 2015, in The International New York Times. Today’s Paper|Subscribe

 

New York Times, November 9, 2015

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

Gay marriage signed into law in Ireland

Gay Marriage Voted in by 62.1% in Ireland

Dublin (AFP) – Gay marriage was signed into law in Ireland, five months after a historic referendum saw the traditionally Catholic nation become the world’s first country to vote for gay unions.

“The Presidential Commission today signed the ‘Marriage Bill 2015’ into law,” the president’s office said in a statement, paving the way for the first weddings within a month.

Ireland voted 62.1 percent in favour of allowing marriage between two people “without distinction as to their sex” in May, the first time anywhere that gay marriage has been legalised in a referendum.

The president’s endorsement was the final hurdle for the bill after legal challenges briefly delayed the legislation from coming into effect.

The first ceremonies should be possible by mid-November, according to Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

Senator Katherine Zappone, who had long campaigned for her Canadian marriage to her wife to be recognised in Ireland, called it “a defining moment”.

“It is a deeply emotional moment for those of us who have campaigned for so long,” Zappone said in a statement.

“This victory truly belongs to the nation, it is a moment for us all.”

In a memorable moment that unfolded live on national television after the referendum result was announced, Zappone proposed to her wife Ann Louise Gilligan to re-marry her under Irish law.

International gay rights campaigners congratulated efforts by Irish activists to win public support for a “Yes” vote in the referendum.

“Tribute must also be paid to national politicians in Ireland, as all the main political parties put aside their partisan differences to campaign for the greater goal of equality,” Evelyne Paradis of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association said in a statement.

Marriages between same sex couples that took place outside of Ireland will now be recognised under Irish law.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

YahooNews.com, October 30, 2015
in In the News / International / Legal / Legislation  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Do gay parents parents spend more time with kids?

Study finds gay parents spend significantly more time with kids

Gay parents spend significantly more time with their kids, according to a new study that challenges biases against same-sex parenting.

Researchers from the Population Research Center at the University of Texas found that women in lesbian relationships spend 40% more time engaged in child-focused activities than their straight counterparts, largely because both mothers typically offer as much time as mothers in straight relationships.

Fathers in straight relationships spend only about half as much time on child-focused activity. However, fathers in gay relationships spend roughly the same time as the mothers (around 100 minutes a day).

Lesbian couples invest 40% more time in their children

‘Our findings support the argument that parental investment in children is at least as great – and possibly greater – in same-sex couples as for different-sex couples,’ Kate Prickett, the lead author of the study, wrote on the Child and Family Blog.

‘On measures of child-focused time, children with two parents of the same sex families actually seem to receive more time investment. They received more focused time from their parents – 3.5 hours a day, compared with 2.5 hours by children with two different-sex parents.’

Child-focused activities are those that support their physical and cognitive development, such as reading to them, playing with them, helping with homework, bathing them and taking them to the doctor.

It does not include watching television or doing housework while a child is around. Child-focused activities, as well as certain family events such as eating meals together or reading books, are associated with better child outcomes. The study used 11 years of census data from 2003-2013, with a sample of more than 40,000 parents, 55 parents of whom were in gay relationships.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

gaystarnews.com – by Darren Wee, October 21, 2015
in Parenting / Science  by Anthony Brown 0 comments