Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial: Family Law: The best interest

Thursday, August 25, 2005
Family Law: The best interest
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

The California Supreme Court unanimously decided on Monday that gay and lesbian couples raising children are lawful parents.

We hope that the Washington Supreme Court applies the same standards to a similar case before it. In Sue Ellen Carvin v. Page Britain, the couple had a daughter via artificial insemination. After they split up six years later, one parent is denying the other any contact with the child. Things could get messy: The 2000 Census shows that more than a million children are being raised by same-sex couples in the United States. In this state, same-sex couples have the right to adopt children.

"The laws are geared to the best interest of the child," said Roger Winters, president of the Legal Marriage Alliance. In the absence of adoption (which is not necessary for straight couples), children are left unprotected. "That children can suffer, and people with reasonable obligations can ignore them are perhaps unintended consequences." The big deal here is that never before had the courts applied the rules and principles of straight families to same-sex families, said Jenny Pizer, senior legal counsel at Lambda Legal, a national organization fighting for recognition of civil rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people. The books are still loaded with discriminatory laws.

"California case law states that a child cannot have two mothers, leaving the non-biological parent out in the cold," said Pizer. This ruling is a recognition that the same-sex parents constitute real families, and that their children have the same needs of those raised in straight families.


California court affirms gay parenting - Christian Science Monitor