This week, Texas decided that PRIDE month was a good month to deny two loving, intentional dads legal rights to parent their children. Lucas and Ethan were born in April. Charlynn, a surrogate, bore the boys to term but is not their biological mother. The boys are half-brothers–one is Jason Hanna’s biological son, the other is Joe Riggs’ biological son.
Joe and Jason were married in Washington DC in 2013. Texas has banned gay marriage–although that ban was declared unconstitutional, appeals are still pending. Parental rights are often linked to marriage status and the judge in this particular case claimed that her super-bigoted, anti-gay decision was “strictly” following the law.
Shocking. How this society, well really the dominant mainstream ideology, defines family is ludicrous!
Two million children in the United States are living with LGBTQ parents with whom they are not able to establish a legal relationship. Eight states have obstacles to second parent adoption. Two don’t allow it altogether. And in the 24 states that do, there are long processes and hoops to jump through in order to complete the second parent adoption.
When I had a kid, my male partner and I didn’t have to even really think about having a kid. We didn’t have to go through anything like the process Jason and Joe had to undergo. And that’s true for a vast majority of children born to straight couples. If you are really paying attention, you might take some prenatal vitamins, up your exercise and stop drinking so much caffeine. But more often than not, its just something you do and not always intentionally.
But you certainly don’t have to find egg donors and a surrogate. You don’t have to find a sperm donor and negotiate what, if any, role that man will have in your and your child(ren)s lives if you are a lesbian couple. You don’t have to go through a second parent adoption that often involves home visits and an invasive process of proving that you are worthy of being your child’s parent. You don’t have to hire an estate lawyer and identify beneficiaries so that your partner can take responsibility for his or her child’s well-being in case your are unable to. You don’t have to discuss and negotiate and draw contracts about how you want to raise that child.
In today’s capitalist society, straight, opposite-gender partners have the full and legal right of being whatever kind of parent they want to be. They don’t suffer home visits to ascertain if they will be good parents–those are only put in place if they repeatedly show an inability to parent AFTER the child is born.
A little while ago, a good friend sent me an article about a new California bill now dubbed the Modern Family act. (You too can read the article here.)
This is a good start. We need more legislation that ensures full, equal rights to all LGBTQ people–regardless of whether they want to have a family or not. We need national protections, NOT attacks on LGBTQ families of all sorts.
This discussion is NOT over! For PRIDE month, I think we should explore the meaning of family and how it is used to deny our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community their equal rights. I’m pretty sure we will find other oppressed groups are facing pretty senseless attacks on their rights to family life too. We will see…
