California high court: Same-sex couples are lawful parents  | News | Advocate.com

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August 23, 2005
California high court: Same-sex couples are lawful parents

Same-sex couples who raise children are lawful parents and must mutually provide for their children if the relationship ends, the California supreme court ruled Monday. The precedent-setting decision puts former gay and lesbian couples on equal ground with unmarried heterosexual couples who break up and marks the latest decision by the court recognizing rights of same-sex couples.

The justices, ruling in three cases, announced for the first time that custody and child support laws that hold absent fathers accountable and protect children from the stigma of illegitimacy also apply to estranged gay and lesbian couples who used reproductive science to conceive. In doing so, a Marin County woman was granted legal status as the second mother of twins after the birth mother moved out of state.

The court also ruled that a lesbian cannot avoid paying child support for her former partner's biological children, and that another woman could not go to court to terminate the parental rights of her former lover, years after obtaining a court order stipulating they were both parents. "The court is now protecting the children of same-sex parents in gay families in the same way children are protected with heterosexual couples in heterosexual families," said Jill Hersh, who argued the unnamed Marin County woman's case before the justices.

Courtney Joslin, an attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said, "This is the first time any state supreme court in the country has made this ruling." (AP)

© 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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