From Different Sides....

NYS birth certificates to reflect both same-sex parents

State officials will now let married same-sex couples list both their names on their children’s birth certificates in a policy shift deeply important to many gays and lesbians.

The decision, which echoes similar provisions in states that allow gay marriages or civil unions, is one of many changes since Gov. David Paterson ordered state agencies in May to respect out-of-state gay marriages.

The state Health Department said it agreed to the change, which came after a lesbian couple who are expecting a baby filed a lawsuit. The change would apply statewide except in New York City, which is considering revamping its own birth certificate forms to accommodate same-sex couples.

Under state law, a woman’s husband is automatically deemed a parent of a child the pair conceives through artificial insemination, whether or not he is the genetic father. Gay couples have complained about having to jump through legal hoops to secure equivalent parental rights.


Judge Removes Child From Lesbian Parents

The West Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving a lesbian couple’s appeal of a lower court ruling that removed a child they had reared from birth because the judge wanted the child placed with a married opposite-sex couple.

Circuit Judge Paul Blake originally agreed to allow Kathyrn Kutil and Cheryl Hess to be foster parents for the infant girl, following a positive assessment by the Department of Health and Human Resources.

Court records show that the little girl was born to a drug addicted mother and the baby had had cocaine, opiates and benzodiazepines in her system. Shortly after birth the baby went through drug withdrawal. The father was unknown.

The Department placed the child with Kutil and Hess, who had been approved as foster parents, when it could not find any blood relatives of the mother.

But nearly a year later when the couple applied to adopt the little girl both the Department and Judge Blake balked. In his ruling Blake ordered the child removed saying the baby should be permanently placed in a home where the parents would be a married opposite-sex couple.

The ruling said that he had agreed to allow the women to foster the child because it was the best option at the time. But he never intended it to be permanent.

"I think I’ve indicated time and time again, this court’s opinion is that the best interest of a child is to be raised by a traditional family, mother and father," Blake’s ruling said.

"Now, that’s this court’s opinion as to what a typical West Virginian would feel and what the typical attitude is of the West Virginia Supreme Court, a traditional family."

In their appeal to the state, Supreme Court the women argue that Blake exceeded his authority and violated their constitutional rights. The appeal argues that Blake is "setting a dangerous precedent" for discriminatory treatment of non-traditional families.

A different judge recently approved Kutil’s adoption of a 12-year-old girl whom she’d been fostering for over two years, the appeal notes.

West Virginia law allows either single individuals or married couples to adopt. It says nothing about same-sex couples.