California Voids Gay Custody Rulings

California Voids Gay Custody Rulings
by Mark Worrall
365Gay.com Newscenter
San Francisco Bureau
Posted: September 2, 2004 4:01 pm ET
Updated: September 2, 2004 7:03 pm ET

(San Francisco, California) The California Supreme Court has set aside rulings in three cases in which former lesbian partners are claiming parental status for children they had helped to raise.

The court agreed to hear arguments on the cases at a future hearing.

The move came just three weeks after the high court voided 4,000 same-sex marriages performed in San Francisco earlier this year. (story)

All three cases involved women who had separated from their partners but wanted visitation rights. In each of the cases the California Court of Appeals refused to treat the former same-sex couples as co-parents, although the courts reasoning varied case by case.

One case involved a woman ordered to pay child support for twins born through in vitro fertilization to her then partner. The second case involved a woman who had donated her eggs to her partner, and the third case concerned a woman whose prenatal agreement with her then partner was ruled invalid.

Each of the cases was appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The Court did not indicate when it might hear the case, but it is believed it will not be prior to hearing the constitutional challenge to the state law which bans gay marriage.

"It's hard to imagine a more impossible set of directions for parents and courts than to have three cases, all of which point in different directions," said Jenny Pizer, senior staff attorney at the Lambda Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Meanwhile, the City of San Francisco and a coalition of gay rights groups filed opening briefs this morning in their lawsuit trying to have the state's one-man one-woman marriage laws declared unconstitutional. Next week the court will schedule a hearing on the issue. But, it could take a year for the case to reach the California Supreme Court.
The arguments contained in the briefs rely heavily on the same arguments that persuaded the highest court in Massachusetts to legalize gay marriage in that state earlier this year -- namely, that existing marriage laws discriminate against gays and lesbians without a legitimate public purpose.

But they also advance some claims that haven't been used elsewhere, according to attorneys who brought the cases on behalf of the city and 12 same-sex couples.

These include the notion that a ban on same-sex marriage costs local governments lost tax revenue and the burden of providing health benefits to unmarried residents, as well as the idea that it prohibits gays and lesbians from freely expressing themselves under the state's version of the First Amendment.

"Marriage is a symbolic institution by which a couple declare their love and commitment to each other in a way that is singularly understood in this culture," Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said at a news conference announcing the critical step in the continuing legal fight.

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