Stories like this one, via Lean Left, now scare the crap out of me.
The American Civil Liberties Union issued a friend-of-the-court brief today in a case that highlights the very scary dangers of the gay-marriage amendments that passed across the country. In 1999, a lesbian couple, Tina Burch and Christine Smarr, had a child in West Virginia. Smarr, the biological mother, was killed in a car accident in 2002. Her parents have spent the last two years seeking to take custody from her partner (the surviving parent) in West Virginia’s courts. The ACLU explains that:
Following Smarr’s death, her parents, Paul and Janet Smarr, sought to take custody of Zachary. The trial court sided with Burch and awarded her primary custody, with visitation rights to the grandparents. The court found Burch to be Zachary’s “psychological parent” – one who, while not related to a child biologically or through adoption, has functioned as a parent in every way. West Virginia appeals courts have recognized psychological parents in the past, but never involving gay couples.
The Circuit Court reversed the trial judge’s ruling, deciding to remove Zachary from a parent he has lived with since birth and give custody instead to his grandparents. The Circuit Court refused to apply the psychological parenthood doctrine in the context of a gay couple. The case is now before the West Virginia Supreme Court on appeal. Burch has been allowed to maintain custody of Zachary pending a decision by the high court.
Despite having raised the 4-year-old since birth, the non-biological mother is forced to fight to prove she is the parent of the child. In the wake of restrictive gay-marriage amendments, with more and more states denying rights to gay and lesbian couples that heterosexual couples take for granted, this will not be the last suit of its kind. [emphasis added]
While we were in the legal process of finalizing our son’s adoption, the hubby and I took some time to have legal wills, advance directives and medical powers of attorney written up for both of us. We stated clearly what we wanted in case something should happen to us, who we would want to raise Parker in the event that the hubby and I both died. (It’s something you have to think about as a parent; the very real likelihood that you will predecease your child.) I don’t know what would happen in a case where one of us died and the other was left alive, but the reality is that we might be vulnerable to something just like to story above, no matter how many legal documents we have drawn up. I know I wouldn’t put it past my parents to try something like that, given their feelings on homosexualty.
Just today, I was having lunch with another gay dad and fellow blogger, and we talked about the “new world” gay families found themselves in after November 2nd. The reality is that in 11 states (including my home state, Georgia) we are now second class citizens, and our families barely recognized at all. One state, Oklahoma, has gone so far as to outlaw adoptions by same sex couples in the state, and to refuse to recognize adoptions by same sex couples outside of the state. I can only guess that in Oklahoma, we’d have no legal relationship to our son. That would be severed as soon as we crossed state lines. And in other states, like Virginia, which have gone so far as to not only outlaw same sex marriage, but any contracts or agreements resembling marriage between persons of the same sex, the hubby and I have no legal relationship to each other. No matter now I look at it, the country I woke up in on November 3rd was a lot less friendly than before, and a lot less mine.
I just started reading Why Marriage Matters. It’s both an easy and a difficult read. At times I feel, a mixture of sadness and frustration that causes me to have to put the book down. The more I read, the more divorced I feel from this country.
I’m cringing from the irony here.
When I was in my 20′s, I took a vow not to marry until the ERA was passed. At that time, there were states where women lost many rights at marraige — one, I recall, had a law that required married women to move where the husband wanted. These states, mostly in the south, were not places I anticipated living — but I was old enough to realize that the unplanned often happens.