Posted on 07/12/2004 4:23:39 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley .
In 1992, two women, Kristine and Lisa, began a “long-term relationship.” Ten years later, it ended but not before one of them had given birth.
Sorting out the mess created by this relationship’s breakup has now produced a landmark legal decision—one that demonstrates how our culture has turned marriage and family law on its head.
After Kristine became pregnant by artificial insemination, the pair entered into a domestic partnership agreement agreeing that both would be the child’s parents. Lisa, however, never adopted the child, even though, under California law, she could have done so.
Two years after the child’s birth, Kristine ended the partnership and sought to sever Lisa’s “parental” rights. Kristine contended that, under Californialaw, the only way that Lisa could ever be considered the second parent was if she had adopted the child.
Lisa countered by citing the provisions of the domestic partnership agreement. Last week, a California appeals court ruled that the issue of parentage “cannot rest simply on the parties’ agreement.”
If the court had stopped there, we might be celebrating the ruling. But, of course, it didn’t. It ruled that Lisa was entitled to rights as a “presumptive father” under California’s Family Code.
California’s Family Code says that a man is presumed to be the father of a child if “he receives the child into his home and openly holds out the child as his natural child.”
How did the court apply this to a woman? By ruling that the statute must be read in a “gender-neutral manner.” As the court acknowledged, the legislature never “expressly” contemplated such a result, but it said that it’s what “gender-neutrality” requires.
The provision, like most state provisions on the subject, incorporates the Uniform Parentage Act, or UPA. At the time of the UPA’s drafting, there were no such things as domestic unions. When the drafters used the male pronoun, they really meant “father.”
What’s more, the purpose behind the UPA was to protect the interests of children whose paternity was called into question. It was adopted in the wake of Supreme Court decisions that outlawed discrimination on the basis of illegitimacy.
The goal of enacting a uniform set of standards to determine paternity was to protect the rights of children with regards to child support, inheritance, and government benefits. It was not to sort out visitation and custody arrangements between two people who already acknowledged a parental relationship to the child.
The court’s decision in California turns this purpose on its head by making the rights of adults, not children, the primary concern of the law. In this way, it is perfectly in keeping with the Massachusetts decision that mandated same-sex “marriage.” Rather than being the means by which a society safeguards its children’s well being, marriage and family law are becoming a vehicle for adult self-fulfillment.
All of this is to the detriment of our kids. It takes the focus off the most important and vulnerable members of our society and makes their well being something we see to after the so-called “needs” of adults have been met. In other words, it turns the law and thousands of years of human history on its head.
Results of gay marriage in Scandinavia.
Results of gay marriage in Holland
Where it will lead sociologically.
Let's be nice, live-and-let-live libertarian types, just like in Canada.
(In Sweden and Canada gay activists got parts of the Bible made "illegal." Do we want to encourage them in the USA?)
BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!
If anyone wants on or off my BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
That's just sick.
Lisa is in no way, fact or fiction, the presumtive father of this child.
Guess you're not as jaded as you thought...:-)
You have illustrated the exact problem here: About half the judges will make whatever they darn well please out of the law, rather than deciding cases. Deciding that a woman is a father...no connection to reality there, just a judge seeing a way to make the gayization of the US easier. The only part of this gay marriage debate that gives me any hope is this: It might just make people realize that our best (perhaps only) hope is to begin impeaching every activist judge we can. Just nailing a couple will put the fear of God into most of them, and those who aren't afraid will get their turn at being impeached. It is high time the judicial branch started fearing the people's power, not the other way around.
Makes sense. It's the logical extension of the reasoning that allows unborn children to be murdered with impunity.
Interesting. If the law has to be read as "gender-neutral", what will that do to various laws that have traditionally limited "father's rights?"
There are probably a few men in Californica that could sue to get various divorce settlements and visitation agreements adjusted, in light of this new interpretation of the law.
This is the sickest joke I've ever read. Of course, the mainstream media will never mention it.
The ruling lays bare the heart of homosexual advocacy. The denial of linkage between sex and procreation, and the objectification of children.
HA!!!!!!!!!! What a bunch of split tongued bastards. Even when allowed within constitutional mandates the fecality of their morality finally explodes and they pick up the feces and call it "Dad". LOL!
Homosexual Agenda Ping - I guess I'll have to bring back "The Tsunami of Sewage"(tm). This definitely qualifies. Of course, the last one did too.
This is pure, unadulterated, 200 proof, raw, unrefined, unexpurgated insanity. The kind that destroys individual lives en masse, and whole civilizations if not STOPPED AND STOPPED SOON.
They are saying that children are trash and perverts' sexual wants are worshippable. It sickens and angers me beyond words.
Let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
Can we kick them out of the union? I mean like a divorce!
why not?? Isn't it a good idea for contracts to be enforcable? Aren't contracts the very basis of.. oh nobody cares.
If you cannot trust a contract in this country, our entire economy could be wrecked.
Right, and also the rejection of any kind of common-sense sex role or gender distinctions: a female "father."
Bump!
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