Hey, lady, you’ve made the press with your sob story about not being included on your kid’s birth certificate. Well, I’ve got news for you, sweetheart – YOU ARE NOT A BIOLOGICAL PART OF THAT CHILD so WHY SHOULD YOU BE ON THE FUCKING BIRTH CERTIFICATE??? I’m sympathetic to the gay cause but this is just the call of a puffed up moron trying to defy biology. Your partner’s name is there because she gave birth to the child. You may be this child’s parent in every other way, but YOU DID NOT CONTRIBUTE ANY GENETIC MATERIALS. So please fuck off and go parent your kid instead of spouting off such utter bullshit.
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.
I’d like to point out that a woman who gives birth to a child has every right to name a man as the father on a birth certificate regardless of whether or not he contributed genetic material. Opposite-sex non-biological fathers do not have to go through the same adoption process that a non-biological mother in a same-sex union would. We just want things equal.
Jennifer is right. Please know your facts before you blast people –if the father gets these rights then why shouldn’t the mother. Which, now she does. Good for them for fighting for their rights. Signed — woman married to a man but still believe in gay rights!
SOI, a man who is legally married to a woman is considered the de facto legal parent of any children she bears. Even if the man is known to be incapable of “contributing genetic material” and the pregnancy is the result of artificial insemination by a sperm donor. Would you be kind enough to enlighten us as to how this situation is different from the one under discussion?
Actually I have to point out that non-biological fathers do have to adopt the child, regardless of marriage status. I know this for fact as my fiance had to be adopted by her father. In this country we are given the benefit of the doubt when there is obvious room for denial, a mother says some guy is the father of a new born child…the government has no reason or right to doubt that, as it is conceivable that he did “contribute” genetic material (another man who could be the father has the right to sue for a paternity test and be placed on the birth certificate, if the test proves he is the bio-donor). When two women state they are both biological parents of the child…there is room to seriously doubt that, obviously. I know it may SEEM unfair but when you sit down and think about it for a moment, it makes logical sense, which is quite amazing because most often our government isn’t really known for making sense.
Just a little curious about this – it is certainly not unknown for one of the mums to have an egg harvested for insemination and implantation into the other mum’s uterus. While this may not give them that shared DNA that seems so very important to many of you, it certainly does invest them both in the entire birth process… as if they hadn’t been before, I mean. How do you know that Emily & Jamie didn’t do that?And frankly, when you consider the efforts a lesbian or gay couple have to go to just to BECOME parents, I think it’s incredibly arrogant and paternalistic for anybody (government or otherwise) to suggest that they are NOT equal parents simply because there may not be shared DNA.
I think your suggestion is brilliant Bobbi, solid suggestion! It would be easily proven through medical documentation too, or should it not be truthful that they did not have the baby through that process and lied about it they could easily prove that as well. But I would like to comment on the second paragraph, they are considered equal parents once the adoption process is finalized. They even have equal rights in a custody battle, should that ever unfortunately arise. I am just as annoyed as the origianl poster with how they say they are being treated differently when in fact they are being treated exactly the same as everybody else (in THIS situation) and they are wasting tax dollars while the government defends it’s position (they are suing the govn’t). The case would have been tossed if this wasn’t a visible minority couple suing and the government is scared it will be viewed as intolerant or even repressive of the gay and lesbian community. Not saying that it hasn’t been….just that in this case they are most certainly not treating them differently. Hey it could be worse…they could all be living in the States and not be allowed to even have common-law or god forbid…married. I think our government has come a long way regarding the G&L community. Now if we can only get it to stop treating the other minorities so poorly, we might truly have the wonderland we so incorrectly promote to the rest of the world!