Same-sex custody battle could change Florida law

this same sex marriage/custody of children stuff would lead to more rights (to their children) for men. sooner or later the women were going to have custody disputes, and with no men around to hammer, the courts would finally have to fall back on the principle of equality before the law. you know that one, its the one our forefathers demanded we should uphold. actually carved it in stone on the supreme court entrance so they wouldn't forget.

so now they must be in a titter, those manly manginas, with no men to run down. now they will have to figure out just who gets what based on which one ....?

use your imagination. i did, and it was pretty funny.

imho, if folks were really so fond of marriage, why in heaven's name did they let feminists and the courts get control of it?

I hope you're right. That could be a positive for dads. On the other hand, I suspect the courts will favor the biological parent, if any, over the social parent. Still, I've thought of this before myself--if two dads are battling over custody, the court will have to break tradition and give the child to one of the dads (or, hopefully, joint custody). If a gay dad with custody is acceptable, surely a straight dad with custody might be okay.

Of course, I've debated this issue with straight men who say the courts are right to favor the mother; hard to believe they would put up with that, but it's one of the reasons courts keep doing what they do.

in this article.
They did an interesting thing by taking an egg from one woman and putting into the body of her partner to incubate. But where did the sperm come from and how come no mention of the father in all of this hysteria? Seems to me they have left out 1/2 of the equation - because everyone (including gays) know that it takes a man and a woman to produce a child.

oregon dad

Though I hope Dave is right, I've always considered one of the big problems with same-sex marriage is that it puts bio parents and "legal parents" on an equal status. Traditionally, bio parents--mom and dad--always had legal priority. This was a fairly straightforward way to decide parental rights and responsibilities. But now that's all muddled. If a woman gives birth, she can choose the second parent in some states. In other cases, the second mother is the legal mother because of marriage. But if she is a mother by marriage, could she choose yet another woman to be the second legal mother? Are her rights equal to the birth mother's or inferior to the birth mother's? If this sounds confusing, that's because it is. As this case illustrates, it makes it very difficult to answer a basic question: Who is the mother of the child? The legislature will have to sort this out because same-sex marriage changes just about everything, as this case illustrates.

And, as you point out, the father is not even mentioned. I suspect fathers will become less and less relevant, except in the case of two married men. Already in some states, the birth mother can choose the second parent on the birth certificate. The birth certificate determines parenthood, not biology. But there are still other factors to consider in determining parenthood, some of which are contradictory in nature. So the court can't answer a basic question: Who are the parents of this child? That used to be a factual issue; now it's a legal issue. The upshot may be that if you want to raise your children, marry a man, as that gives you the best chance of equal treatment by the courts. Will that spill over to straight marriages? I hope, but I'm not sure. The law is never logical.

On the other hand, if you're a man who had a child after a one-night stand and never really wanted a child, DNA evidence alone should not be enough to declare you the father if biology itself does not determine parenthood, so the legal basis of financial responsibility is weakened.

Further, if biology is irrelevant, a wealthy gay couple would have standing to sue for custody of the child of a poor straight couple--and win, because they could offer the child more, even though the bio parents are fit parents.

Same-sex marriage and technology seem to offer solutions, but they just create more problems, as one lawyer notes. Will this help dads? Maybe, in some situations. Or it could make fathers all the more irrelevant, with the birth mother being given all the power. I'm not sure because the issues have not yet been sorted out by the legislature and the courts. In this case, we have a bio mother, a birth mother, and an unknown father. So who are the parents of the child? Even the courts can't figure it out--and, frankly, they shouldn't be the ones deciding. This is a recipe for legal confusion--which means the lawyers, as usual, will win.