SACRAMENTO — Legislation that would allow more that two “parents” per child has passed the California state Senate and gone on to the state Assembly.
S.B. 1476 “brings California into the 21st century by recognizing that there are more than ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ families,” said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who proposed the legislation.
The bill, which the Senate passed by a 24-13 vote, would amend California’s family code so a judge could allow a child to have more than two parents where “the best interests of the child” require it. The new rules would cover a situation, for example, in which a man begins dating a woman while she’s pregnant and then they marry. Three people could now claim to be the child’s “parent”: the mother, the ex-boyfriend (the biological father) and the new husband.
As another example, a lesbian couple could ask a male friend to help them conceive, then decide all three will raise the child.
“One of the most common situations is when a child has two legal parents — a mother and the mother’s husband — and also a biological father who’s in the picture,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “We want courts to be able to protect both of those [paternal] relationships.”
Leno, who is up for reelection this year, defends the bill on the grounds that it will lower taxpayer expenses “because all parents will be obligated to provide support,” and having more than two parents may “keep a child out of foster care by giving the court more options for placement.” On his website, Leno states that he is “the first openly gay man elected to the California Senate” and that he authored California’s first same-sex “marriage” bills.
The bill is now in committee and expected to come to a vote soon, perhaps on Aug. 6.
Carol Hogan, communications director for the California Catholic Conference, said there’s little doubt in this heavily liberal-Democrat state that the bill will pass and be signed into law.
But family-law scholars warn that, if passed, the new rules will lead to burdensome consequences for courts and children.
‘A Hornets Nest of Litigation’
Now that our society has accepted so many alternate “family forms” and has embraced in vitro fertilization and other reproductive technologies, “it makes sense in a perverse kind of way for legislatures and the courts to say, ‘We’ve got to create all these new rules,’” said William Duncan, director of the Washington-based Marriage Law Foundation.
Even so, Duncan observed, “The problems [with this legislation] are legion. Since the dawn of time, it’s been understood that you’ve got a mom and a dad — there’s one each per child. Our laws, including our marriage laws, are all built around that understanding.”
Charles Reid, a family-law scholar at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, said the new rule will lead “to all sorts of confusion” and “a hornet’s nest of litigation.”
“It sounds horrible to me, a nightmare,” said Katherine Spaht, a family-law professor at Louisiana State University. “When you’ve got four or five people who could potentially be recognized as parents, it creates a host of problems for the child.”
If the group breaks up, for example, four or five people — or “parents” — could sue for custody. A 3-year-old child could be “dragged all over the place, having visitation rights with everybody under the sun,” Spaht said.
Or, to consider another scenario, what if a 2-year-old should happen to inherit a million-dollar estate from a grandparent? Suddenly, everyone is going to want to be that child’s “parent,” Spaht said.
“When parenting in the law is reduced to simply the combination of unrelated people who can provide the best outcome for children, then there will no longer be any need for marriage, the only institution that unites kids with their moms and dads,” said Bill May of Catholics for the Common Good. “It used to be that courts protected children. With laws permitting the assignment of combinations of adoptive and natural parents based on some subjective 'best interest,' you can be almost certain the interest served will be that of the adults or the state rather than the fundamental rights of the children to know, be loved and be cared for by their own flesh and blood.”
“One way divorce is hard on children is that they have to navigate between two different worlds: dad and his situation and mom and what she’s going through,” Duncan said. “Adding another person to that mix seems almost unreal to me.”
For example, in a relationship triangle of birth mother and two fathers (current husband and ex-boyfriend who had lived with the mother and child) what if the ex-boyfriend, who is not the biological father, is abusive or goes after the child out of spite? “Social science research shows the ex-boyfriend demographic is especially risky for children,” Duncan said.
The bill specifically states the new rule would require a court to decide what is best for the child.
But with parental duties divided among three or more people, “the difficulty is that no one will have enough of the parenting responsibility to allow the child to flourish,” observed Margaret Brinig, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Not the First — Nor the Last?
Though unique in some ways, S.B. 1476 is not the first state legislation that attempts to reconfigure the legal definition of “parenthood.”
In July 2009, Delaware passed a statute giving courts the power to designate an unrelated adult as a child’s “parent” if the biological parent agrees and the person has exercised “parental responsibility” long enough for the child to have bonded with him or her.
A District of Columbia statute, passed in 2007, would allow for at least three “parents” per child.
Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, sees the California bill as “a Trojan horse for the same-sex ‘marriage’ movement.”
The multiple-parent movement is “clearly the next step in deconstructing the family” and “an outgrowth of the same-sex ‘marriage’ idea,” Duncan agreed. “If marriage is just ‘any two people,’ there cannot be anything unique about having a mother and a father. And if mothers and fathers are interchangeable, why not have more of each kind?”
Supporters of the measure say it came about as the result of a 2011 appellate court decision involving a lesbian couple who were raising a young girl. When one woman was hospitalized and the other sent to prison, the girl’s biological father was unable to act as her legal guardian under current California law, which recognizes only two legal parents per child.
“This bill has nothing to do with the broader culture war,” said Ed Howard at the University of San Diego’s Children’s Advocacy Institute. “The idea we’re trying to advance any agenda other than what’s in the best interest of a particular kid in a particular courtroom is just balderdash.”
But Duncan said whatever the intentions are of the drafters of the bill, it’s the damaging effects on children that matters. “We wouldn’t have this kind of strange situation where a father is shut out of a child’s life if California hadn’t first decided to redefine what a parent means,” Duncan said. “So California creates a mess, and, then, in trying to fix the mess, they make the situation even worse.”
Register correspondent Sue Ellen Browder writes from Ukiah, California.
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This falls in the category of things where whatever evils might exist without it, they pale in comparison to the evils that will exist with it.
“The new rules would cover a situation, for example, in which a man begins dating a woman while she’s pregnant and then they marry.”
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There is already a name for this: step-parent. What was wrong with that?
So Heather can have an egg mom, a womb mom, and a life mom. And her sperm daddy.
And each of these good folk can have a partner, of any or no gender. (Under present oppressive laws, they can only have one partner each.)
Won’t little Heather’s birthday party be a blast! She’ll be swamped with caring adults, all loading her up with presents.
A pity that she’s confused about who she is and where she fits in.
You Americans are becoming the laughing stock of the world. And this is very sad news.
this perversion of society by demoNcrats just doesn’t end…must make all you catholics who vote for demoNcrats truly proud to see what your version of a family is, versus THE MOST HOLY FAMILY….
No, California, the problem is with your family courts that have a screwed up sense of priorities and care more about the feelings of the parents than the feelings of the child. If the biological father in that 2011 case “couldn’t” get legal custody, then obviously there was some idiot judge that listened to an idiot argument from one of the “mothers” who objected to him caring for his daughter. Parents are perfectly capable of assigning legal guardianship powers to others if they think ahead, and if they don’t, the courts can assign guardianship to family members. The problem is that too many California family law judges are total idiots about the whole thing. Which is why parents trying to get their children away from an abusive parent have had to smuggle them to Mexico for years now.
In today’s Orwellian nightmare, a child could have *five* parents: an egg donor, a sperm donor, a surrogate mother, and two adoptive parents. Whose kid is this?
It is well-established that the rate of homosexuality in the U.S. (both sexes) is about 1% (see recent Guttmacher Inst. poll), or about the rate of openly schizophrenics (not those in a latent stage).
From the article: S.B. 1476 “brings California into the 21st century by recognizing that there are more than ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ families,” said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who proposed the legislation.
Given a 1% rate of homosexuality rate there may be some marriages that have lower moral values than “Ozzie and Harriet” but with repsect to homosexual “marriages”, their number are simply not significant against that vast number of families with some form of morality at their core. If you tell a lie often enough…
Excellent article - Everything I could write is already here - outrageous initial proposition, certainty of bad ‘unintended consequences’ for children, the emerging primacy of selfish adult interests in the law.
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I am so glad to be a Catholic - our worldview is time-tested and true, and it is what this crazy culture will come back to eventually if one is to have any hope at all for our survival.
...Well I mean California. It one of the most beautiful places created by God, but the people who live there are from another planet.
The use of the word ‘legion’ in Mr Duncan’s quote is intriguing…
I look forward to the time, and it is drawing near, when God Himself intervenes in this immoral and decadent culture we are living in. If a person is a person living within a homosexual life style, that is between them and God. That does not include any of them, legislator or not, to constantly push their aberrant, unnatural, and perverted life style and “agenda” down the throats of those of us that live according to the natural law of God. We can love the sinner and hate the sin - as does God. Due to apathy on the part of heterosexuals, our voice seems to take a back seat to the ‘gay community’. Their is much more “order” within the animal kingdom than there currently is among mankind. We all need to heed the the prayer of 2Chronicles7:14 while we are in a time of God’s mercy. A time of God’s justice is on the way.
Jim Conrad…I agree…I wonder how long the HAND OF GODS JUSTICE will be unleased upon America and the rest of humanity…..40 years of tens of millions of the children in the womb, the abomination of the priest sex abuse scandal, and now the perverted, demonic acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle…SODOM AND GOMORRAH were destroyed because of this one sin of homosexuality, just what is going to be left of civilization afters the JUSTICE OF GOD comes down upon us….the world needs us ROMAN CATHOLICS to become Saints everyday to lessen the punishment that the world will soon see
Wow. Looks like children are being treated as property or chattel, to be divided amongst owners….
God will only withstand so much of the demoralization and killing of His innocents…..Though He promised never to destroy the world in a flood again, methinks it’s not a flood that will do us in….something far worse….May God have mercy on all of us….
I have to disagree that it would be that bad, as a child who grew up in the situations that they are referring to. I promise; it’s really hard on the child to explain. They shouldn’t be punished for their parent’s behavior.
To avoid drama, my mom got sole custody of me in the divorce. While it is possible under the current system for step-parents to adopt, I am close to both my biological father and my stepfather, and did not want to do that to my biological father. The only way for them to hold equal footing was to hold no legal weight. If something happened to my mom, that wouldn’t be fair, as they were both fully competent stable parents capable of raising me on their own in a worst case scenario.
While it would be great if these complicated situations didn’t exist, they do, and pretending that they’re going to go away in the next few years is just kidding ourselves.
I love the use of the word “legion” in Duncan’s quote - so accurate.
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Also wanted to mention (although I don’t know the laws of other states) in Missouri any man who signs the baby’s birth certificate is considered to be the legal biological father - even if he’s not.
Next will be the demand for the rights of the participants in these unholy combinations to be legally married. I’ve said all along that this gay marriage push will not stop at two humans. To use the “I get it” word from Stranger in a Strange Land of the 60s, I grok that it’s headed for two guys, a gal, and a goat; legally married. California continues to lead the USA in a downward spiral.
On related note, San Diego is reaching down to be the third world - it now has many pedicabs.
Oh well, the early Christians faced worse than this as the Roman Empire died. We need to see it as all as a series of opportunities to strengthen our faith and, through good examples, to bring more people to Christ!
Dave Gilmer, you are correct. I have yet to see a line of reasoning that says we should accept the “marriage” of two people of the same gender but not 3 or 4 or more. What would it be - respect for tradition?! :-D
It’s no secret that some are hoping to use society’s blessing of same-sex “marriage” as a stepping stone to acceptance of polyamorous unions:
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/166770/48/Polyamory-Redefining-loves-boundaries?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|t
This has nothing to do with the rights of the child but the claimed rights of those who want to be parents. Selfishness abounds and innocent kids are going to be the victims.
I’m extremely familiar with this bill and all the reporting surrounding it. One thing struck me about the article and another thing strikes me about the comments.
The article right from the lead and throughout it all is misleading (hopefully unintentionally) about what the bill does. I think every other report I’ve read has correctly and forthrightly noted that the bill does not change the legal standard under California law for who qualifies as a parent, contrary to the implication of using the word “parent” in quotes in the lead. California in fact honors marriage bond by presuming a child born during the early part of a marriage to be the child of the husband, even if the child is biologically the child of another man.
When marriage can dictate parent status rather than biology, the “parent” most likely to lose parental status is the biological father outside the marriage. That is who lost such status in the referenced court case. And, you can’t become a non biological parent under the law just by being a grown up who helps out. You have to hold the child out as your own—not niece, stepchild, but your own child. It isn’t an easy test to pass, nor should it be.
So, under the bill you have to first satisfy the current legal test of being a parent, then a judge also has to rule that failing to recognize the additional parent would harm a real, live child.
Only then is an additional parent permitted, under the bill.
About the comments. Only one—the one in favor of the bill—actually tries to talk about the interests of children. Here, those who oppose the bill should articulate why it is moral to require a judge to rule without discretion, without analysis of the child’s unique circumstance, in a way that the evidence shows will hurt a child by failing to recognize a parental relationship and bond. By “true parental relationship” I mean both under the law as it is right now and under the really important test of who a child looks to and rightly calls their mommy or daddy.
It is a really big deal legally to separate a child from their mom or dad. Shouldn’t the judge be able to look at the consequences for the child of doing so?
Why only two mummies and two daddies. The protagonists of “modern"families can suggest a community living and thereby children will be common and each child will have 20 or 40 or any number. One biological father can be the son of a parent, a nephew, a grandfather and so on as he is a free studbull. Why not remove all present ideas and replace it with ” Convenient Pleasure Homes ” instead of sacred family hitherto known as.
The 1995 document “Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality” from the Vatican claims “personhood” to homosexuals. The document does not teach that homosexual practices violates the Commandments of God. It appears God made a mistake and man knows better. There is no outrage only silence from the post Vatican II conciliar “People of God”.
No, Heather cannot have 2 mommies. Or 2 daddies. At most, Heather can have 1 mommy and 1 daddy. Anything aside from that is unnatural.
EH - How can you state that the commentators above do not have the interests of the child foremost, in reaffirming the reality of male/female parentage for each child, and stating a preference for the time-tested standard of one man/one woman marriage? In fact, the forces who want to redefine marriage and parenthood, and accept any kind of artificial/surrogate reproduction, are doing these things to satisfy adult desires. Case closed.
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In time, society will see how twisted and selfish these developments are, but many children will be thrashed around in the meantime. Family lawyers will thrive, however!
California is sick. This place is Sodom and Gomorrah. Calif is run by a single party that is corrupt and diabolic as it gets. But so are the people who vote for them.
“Subsists In” is a key element in the 1962-1965 Council of Vatican 11. Lumen Gentium states the Church of the post Vatican II era subsists in the Church. (church is not defined as Catholic) “Subsist” means that one lives or exists or survives. The Catholic Encyclopedia adds an additional theological meaning and that is the ability to exist without being dependent upon anything else. The Holy Roman Catholic Church, that is the Mystical Body of Christ possesses this characteristic. The Catholic Church is complete as itself.
Subsists “in” means that the first thing is not the same as the second. New church theorizes that some portion of the Mystical Body of Christ happens to be doing its subsisting therein and elsewhere. Subsists IN the church as stated in Lumen Gentium #8, takes away any exclusive sense of identity of the Church Christ established.
Vatican 2’s document, “Unitatis Redintegratio” states that the Church can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church…..can engender a life of grace ..capable of giving access to the community of salvation….separated Churches..though we believe them to be deficient..have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation.
The new 1983 canon laws #844 and 845 permit Catholics to approach non-Catholic ministers for the Sacraments (not merely in extreme danger of death) at will.
Separated brethren, heretics, schismatics, pagans and demon worshippers, therefore can be a means of salvation.
Anything wrong with this picture my good friends of the conciliar church?
“Growing In Love” curriculum - a sex education program in claimed Catholic parochial schools approved by the bishops in the U. S. teaches that homosexuality (not excluding its practices that cries out to vengeance from God) is an exceptable option along with its unnatural actions. The curriculum does not teach the practices of sodomy are against the Sixth and the Ninth Commandments nor the First Commandment.
See Motherswatch.net parts 1 and 2
Doe this mean that a Mormon can now have two wives?
I believe that this law will be unconstitutional… Limiting children to only to just 4 parents. For the sake of the kids and the taxpayers there should be no limit to the amount of parents. Also we should not limit parent to just even numbers we should be able to have ODD parents
Hell exists my friends, and it is not even half full. Holy Matrimony is a Sacrament instituted by Christ. Marriage and parenting is to be respected, not redefined. People do go to Hell in the end when they run afoul of God’s laws.
As Hillary once said, “It takes a village…” If Leno believes he’s solving an economics problem, well, then the more parents the better. Why stop at three or four? Sadly,this can only lead to a very confused life for a child. Divorces, remarriages, casual relationships, and lovers can increase this “family” scenario exponentially. What a legal nightmare this custody battle could become! Pity the child…
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