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When fighting for rights that you don't have but are entitled to, it's important to realize that there are those who will stand in your way. It is also important to realize that there are those who have your back -- even when you do not particularly like them.
not because i have never heard this kind of argument before ("watch out, or i won't give you what you want"), but because i believed this kind of bully argument style to be beneath you. that's like fighting on the side of the union in the civil war and warning your black allies, "if you disagree with me on any points i make, i will just join the confederacy." lend your voice to the cause because you believe in it, not because you want to use the power of your voice like a bargaining chip, wielding it against anyone who dares disagree with you. that kind of help feels a lot more like harm.
also, you don't vote against the disenfranchisement of a group of people to help friends who belong to that group; you vote against it because it is morally right to do so.
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First, thank you for having our back and voting for the rights that we don't have but are entitled to. Even if we don't like or understand you. Second, I'll try to answer your question:
"But I still think that a 2nd parent adoption is needed to confer parental rights to a child not biologically yours. I am very curious as to why so many in same sex-relationships feel differently."
Because (1) there is NO WAY we can create a child both ours genetically and (2) it's a damn pain in the ass to go to a lawyer, then pay the fees for a piece of paper that will hold up in court, when a marriage license or birth certificate can do the same thing. And (3) first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage. What I mean is that we are intentionally creating a child together. TOGETHER.
Is this what you were curious about?
I'm sorry you felt that way, and I just skimmed through some posts but I don't think anyone here really thinks any of these things. When I was little, I always pictured myself as a lone mom. Not for any other reason than I just like doing stuff my way...so I totally get it...nothing but love here. We really are all the same. All different too, but really the same. We're all just parents or trying to be parents.
Thank you! So nice to have word for that!
I'm pretty sure you're quoting me with this one, and I just want to make it clear that I was referring specifically to Zen and many comments that she has made about her mistrust of relationships and great need to have her children belong to her and her alone. In no way was it meant to be a general statement, it was absolutely specific to her and I stand by it.
Zen, please tell me you see how your comment is problematic at best? When marriage equality passes in your state, I will not be sending you or any one else who voted it for it a thank you note.
The rights of the minority should never be in the hands of the majority. They are rights. Period. You do not confer equality onto me or anyone else. By birth I have earned it. Legally and socially that may not be the way it is, but I'll be damned if I hold my tongue to earn your vote.
ETA: K&H, we were obviously writing at the same time. My comment to BB in this post was about a few instances in this thread where things could be read into it and not a direct response to your post immediately above, ie I am not saying "f that you said it's really all about Zen," if that makes sense.
Lucky Cycle 14: IVF!! Antagonist Cycle with Lupron Trigger
See, I think a lot of straight people just can't get it for one reason or another. I have another friend who is lovely, but who feels her new boyfriend should have the right to adopt her sons, if she wanted him to. He met them when they were 4 and 6, and her sons have a dad. And she equates this desire with the desire of my girlfriend to have legal parenting rights for the children she helped conceive, whom she has supported physically, emotionally, and financially since before birth. It isn't anything near the same.
Zen, if you married someone, they would never get rights to your kids unless you wanted them to do so. I haven't responded because I really seriously cannot understand what you're concerned about or how it can be confusing. (Honestly, I still don't get it.) Children born of a marriage are assumed to have two legal parents - the ones in the marriage - and all same sex couples want is for that to apply to us, too. If you want to get married and have a baby and have it NOT be your husband's child, then you have serious issues that should keep you from marriage in the first place. Nobody was bashing single moms in saying that. They were just saying that Zen's lack of desire for that kind of family doesn't mean that others shouldn't be able to have it. I'll take that a step further and say that Zen's paranoia about someone taking parental rights (HOW could this even happen I seriously do not understand!) should not keep loving same sex couples from easily naming a second parent when donor sperm is used.
In to the SMBC issue, for me it was Shanny's post that actually turned the meaning of K&H's post. The original sentiment may not have been in that post, but Shanny interpreted it as such. Much in the same way that this post may not have started out as anti-gay, it certainly had some layers removed that made the original poster's comments feel pretty anti-gay. At least to this homo it did.
Lucky Cycle 14: IVF!! Antagonist Cycle with Lupron Trigger
I am really glad that we can have these conversations and thank you for helping me learn some things about myself and others.
TTC #2: since June 2016...
I see inherent parental rights as a function of birth and biology. In the use of donor sperm, the man has legally opted out. For another non-bio parent to opt in, I want the gestational bio mom to legally grant the right AND the second parent to legally accept.
Still not sure why this is a problem for so many. It protects the rights of BOTH partners.
I know here in Oregon similar things have happened. If there is not a father listed and you can prove that you were acting as the father and providing over 50% you can go for rights if you at some point were married. I've seen two cases. With one family the couple met at the time the lady had a 9-month-old. They quickly married and divorced with the baby was two. They did not even know each other at the time of thr birth. So from 9 months to two something he fully raised the child as his with in their relationship and was able to go to court for custody and won visitation and parental rights which were what the typical non custodial patent would get here in Oregon.
I haven't really read this whole hot topic though so probably shouldn't even be posting.
2nd daughter born 3/8/2016 (bfp after 7 attempts at home ICI, 2 miscarriages, 1 D&C)
age 36
age 39
EDD 12/13/2013
It's identical TWINS! They're GIRLS!
7/20/2013 Sweet Baby A lost her battle with IUGR.
8/26/2013 Feisty Baby B was born via emergency CSection 16 weeks premature
Shauna - your story is such an inspiration I would never have referenced you. But it's apropos. You were married. You put your spouse on the birth certificate. I regret the failure of any relationship that faltered under hardship conditions. It blows my mind that your husband could have held Bailey in his arms and then later had the ability to want to opt out. No one in love can ever comprehend that the most important person in their world can turn on them so utterly. But to be able to turn away from Baby Bailey? I commend you for helping him leave! At a time when so many women fight to hold deadbeat dads responsible, I love love love that you are helping this man out the door. He simply does not deserve the honor of having a place in Bailey's life.
I totally don't get the implication here. You're worried that a non-bio parent could sneak his/her name on to a birth certificate without the bio parent's knowledge?
But what you're missing in the whole "debate" is that that is exactly what happens when people get married. They accept the legal rights and responsibilities of being in that relationship and being connected together. Why does the inability to have biologically joint children negate that? When I married my wife I accepted her, and all her flaws. I accepted her generous heart and I accepted her credit card debt. I accepted and committed to her family becoming a part of my own, and she accepted mine. Why is more paperwork in addition to that necessary? People get married wanting to make that commitment to each other, and especially in the case of people on this board, they go into having children together wanting to have that commitment, responsibility, and joy, as well as the right to have their opinion heard, to vote on where the family spends the holidays, to have a choice in what religion, if any, they choose for their family.
Making the commitment to get married is each partner making that choice. Why do it again for each child that is born of their union? The choice has been made, there should be no legal need to repeat the process.
The only reason that hetero couples have the rights that they do is because of the assumption that the child born is a biological product of their union. If contested and proven false, the custodial relationship may be legally nullified. In same-sex unions that assumption does not exist. So other means must exist or in my opinion should exist to confer rights of legal custody in the parental relationship
I second this. I have a lot of respect for you guys. You know what it reminds me of? Have any of you watched "The Real"? It's like The View only "real". The younger and more culturally diverse round table. Hill-are-ious. We should have one of those.
Um, yes it is. It absolutely is. If I was not "unioned" to my wife, we would not have our baby. It most definitely is a result of our "union".
The mechanics don't matter. All that matters is intent. And intent will hold up in a fair court any day over mechanics.
That is what marriage is for. When you sign a certificate of marriage it means, among other things, that any child born into that marriage is assumed to be the result of that union.
And again, this is not about biology. You are making it about biology. This is about laws and protections under those laws. If it is written and recognized by the court that you are the parents of that child, there is no one who can step in and win a lawsuit contesting that. The company I work for cannot take me to court to contest my child's birth certificate just because they don't want me to be able to add her to my company paid health benefits, arguing it's due to biological lineage, if the state I live in, issued and recognizes that birth certificate to be true. No matter how many DNA tests they make me take.
This just is not true....
As I said in my first post:
-Heterosexual couples who conceive using a sperm donor or are using both an egg and sperm donor are not required to obtain a second parent adoption because both partners are assumed to have equal rights to the child. (I understand that you do not want this to be the case...but it is how things are right now).
-These couples are afforded these rights due to their legal bindings to each other through their marriage (NOT THEIR BIOLOGY).
-It is also assumed that the couple is making the decision to procreate together. Thus, it is a joint decision that and each party will take full responsibility for within the marriage and in the event of any pending divorce.
-If contested and proven false in a heterosexual relationship...it is typically because the gestational parent cheated, got pregnant, lied to her husband, and made him take care of the child under false pretenses. These sequence of events are morally wrong on so many levels and obviously the husband had ZERO decision making say in her decision to have sex with another man and get pregnant. None of us (at least I don't think) are making children under false pretenses...
(On a side note: It feels like you are comparing my relationship to a Maury show :rolleyes: ).
TTC #2: since June 2016...
We need a round table because this thing is going in circles.
Edited to add: Man, I am crabby before I eat breakfast. sheesh.
TTC #2: since June 2016...
Nice one
Ok. So in Georgia, if you are married and have a baby the child is presumed to be your husband's. Even if you know it is not your husband's, you actually have to go to court to prove it. In that case, the marriage is more important than the biology. All of these rules are based on these moral imperatives to keep civic order and family units as that's best for the over arching government/system.
As a SMBC, Zen, you should be bucking these social conventions and either saying the whole system should be dismantled (which in some posts you seem to say) or the way that the majority on this thread are arguing should resonate with you.
You contradict yourself in each different posts. I'm very confused.
But I'm still sure it's all Shanny's fault somehow.
I will not make a disclaimer about sarcasm.
Lucky Cycle 14: IVF!! Antagonist Cycle with Lupron Trigger