Two more disputed lesbian custody cases are coming in Ohio. both these cases have the following features:
1. a biological mother does not want her former lesbian partner to have parental rights over her child.
2. the former partner and the mother dispute many details of their relationship to each other and their agreement regarding the child.
3. no second party adoption was done, although in one case, “But before the child was born, Mullen (the biological mother) signed legal documents naming Hobbs (her lesbian partner) as Lucy’s co-parent. After the couple broke up, Mullen voided that agreement.”
Without knowing what this agreement actually said, it is hard to know what is going on here. But what is clear, is that adoption is the traditional way the law has attached parental rights to people who are not biologically related to the child. With that in mind, listen to this chilling statement:
Camilla Taylor, a senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal, an advocacy group for gays, said Ohio law recognizes the parental rights of people who have no biological relationship with a child.
“A disturbing number of biological parents are asking the high court or intermediate courts in Ohio to revisit laws that protect children and the rights of nonbiological parents in Ohio,” Taylor said.
Unlike the former Cincinnati couple, Smith and Rowell never signed documents defining their legal relationships with Madison. But Rowell’s attorneys say that doesn’t matter: By relinquishing parental responsibilities to Rowell, Smith made her a co-parent in the eyes of the law.
What exactly does it take to “relinquish parental responsibilities” to someone?
The two women disagree vehemently about almost every detail of Madison’s upbringing, beginning with the girl’s conception. Rowell asserts that she inseminated Smith with the sperm of a donor; Smith insists that a medical professional did so.
Smith says she made all the important decisions regarding the girl’s life: schooling, her baptism, finances, medical care. Rowell says she took part in those decisions.
Smith says Madison refers to her ex-partner as “Julie,” while Rowell says the girl calls her “Moolie,” a blend of “Mom” and “Julie.”
Smith said: “There was no expectation at all that she would be anything other than a friend and a support to Madison and me. It was two women living in a house, and a child was there. We did not take vacations together or live as a family together.”
Rowell shakes her head at that characterization. She shows a studio portrait of the two women and the girl posed as a family, and a picture of Madison’s baptism, at which both women were present.
“Maddie believes that she has two moms and two parents who raised her equally — in every way,” Rowell said. “I parented Maddie financially, emotionally and in every other way.”
The family courts get to adjudicate who counts as a parent, based on these intimate details of family life. Who exactly wants courts to be making these kinds of inquiries? Who in their right minds believes that freedom, liberty and dignity are increased by expanding the jurisdiction of the courts into these areas?
We have legal tools at our disposal to attach children to people who are not related to them: it is called adoption. If these women had agreed to a second party adoption after the birth of the child, there would be no dispute. Both women would count as parents.
I suspect that the reason they didn’t do an adoption is quite simple: the bio mom didn’t really want to. She didn’t really want to share her child with another woman.
So, why should a perfectly fit mother lose custody of her own child, just because she had a sexual relationship with another woman? The Gay Lobby seems convinced that anything short of “marriage equality” makes them “second class citizens.” It seems to me that in cases like these, the biological mother with a lesbian partner has become a second class mother.
