When 3 Really Is a Crowd: legal rights of sperm donators

Hmmmm.....

Had the lesbian partner actually adopted the child?

When gay couples, in general, adopt, are both partners listed as the child's parent?

If not, I can see how this could devolve into a group marriage type thing but if both halfs of the couple are allowed to be listed as parents then I don't think the argument has any weight because then it is basically like a step-parent adoption where the third party has no rights or responsibilities.

I seem to recall something about this case from a while back -- everything was done very informally. Big mistake.

July 16, 2007
By ELIZABETH MARQUARDT, a vice president of the Institute for American Values, is the author of the forthcoming "My Daddy's Name Is Donor."

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Astonishingly, few legal experts, politicians or social commentators have considered the enormous risks these rulings and proposals pose for children.

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What is the harm if other American courts follow Pennsylvania's example? For one thing, three-parent situations typically involve a couple and a third person living separately, meaning the child will get shuffled between homes, and this raises problems.

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Of course, sometimes the three adults might want to live together, which leads to a different set of concerns. As one advocate of polygamy argued in Newsweek, "If Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to have two mommies and a daddy." If more children are granted three legal parents, what is our rationale for denying these families the rights and protections of marriage? America, get ready for the group-marriage debate.

And these are merely the worries if the three parents cooperate. But, as the Pennsylvania case shows, they may not. Conflicts will undoubtedly arise when three parents confront the sticky, conflict-ridden reality of child-raising, often leading to a nasty, three-way custody battle. Even if they part amicably, they may still want to live in three different homes. In that case, how many homes should children travel between to satisfy the parenting needs of many adults?

Finally, why should courts stop at assigning children only three parents? Some situations involve a couple who wants the child, the sperm donor, the egg donor and the gestational surrogate who carries the pregnancy. If we allow three legal parents, why not five?

Thanks fishin'.

I want to be sure I'm clear: when gay couples adopt, they adopt as a married couple would not as a single parent would -- is that right?

When one is a biological parent then it works like a step parent adoption, right?[/quote[

I think that is true in both cases however, if the gay/lesbian couple is married (via MA) or in a Civil Union (via VT) then no adoption is required at all (and this couple was in a Civil Union). I think that when a child is born during the marriage/civil union the parties to the marriage/union are automaticlly the legal parents. (I'd have to research that further to see how the states outside of MA and VT actually handle it if the child is born in their state!)

[quote]I'm still sorting through my thoughts on this but I tend to sway in the direction that whoever appears on the reissued birth certificate needs to have both the responsiblities and the rights.

A Multnomah County judge has ruled that the lesbian partner of a Portland mother is entitled to legal parental status.

The decision marks "a tremendous win for Oregon's families, our children and our Oregon value of basic fairness," said John Hummel, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, the state's largest gay-rights group.

The ruling follows two major victories for gay-rights supporters this spring when the Legislature passed laws to ban discrimination against gays in work and housing, and to give same-sex couples most state benefits of marriage through legal domestic partnerships.

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Jeana Frazzini, 34, sued the state last year after her name was stricken from the birth certificate of the baby of her lesbian partner, K.D. Parman, 32.

Married fathers -- even those whose wives become pregnant through artificial insemination, as Parman did -- automatically get legal parental rights. The couple argued that they were unfairly denied that privilege because of their inability to marry.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Eric J. Bloch ruled Friday in the couple's favor. He wrote that the state constitution bars denying privileges to one class of citizens that are given to another. He also said the domestic partnership law, which takes effect Jan. 1, will end the inequity for Frazzini by giving her legal parental status.

But opponents are challenging the law by collecting signatures to refer it to voters in the November 2008 election. A group called Defense of Marriage and Family, AGAIN! and its supporters have distributed thousands of petitions statewide. Marylin Shannon of Brooks, a former Republican state senator and spokeswoman for the group's chief petitioners, questioned the Multnomah County court decision.

"The judge reached way out there," she said. "(Frazzini and Parman) have a remedy. All they have to do is adopt the child."

Her group must collect 55,179 signatures by Sept. 26 to refer the law to the ballot. If they succeed, the measure will be suspended until the November 2008 election.

If voters reject the law, then Frazzini will be left without the parental status that the court ruled she is entitled to. It's unclear what happens then, said Mark Johnson, an attorney helping to represent Frazzini and Parman.

The couple decided to sue for Frazzini's legal parental status after the birth certificate for their first baby, Emmett, now 3, arrived in the mail without Frazzini's name. She was stunned.

"With a stroke of a pen, someone could remove me from my kid's life legally," she said. Earlier Monday at a news conference, she asked all Oregon parents "to think how it would feel day in and day out if you were not legally equipped to deal with a crisis."

She and Parman have been together 10 years. They married in 2004 when Multnomah County briefly issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The next year, the Oregon Supreme Court declared their marriage illegal. Their lawsuit is the first in several that gay-rights advocates have filed on the basis of a 1998 Oregon Court of Appeals ruling that prohibits the government from discriminating against same-sex couples.

"We're finally on the road to having legal recognition for the whole family," said Frazzini, holding their 1-year-old son, Griffin.

Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers has not decided whether he will appeal the case to a higher court, said Stephanie Soden, spokeswoman for his office.