MARRIAGE DIGEST: Canadian lesbians & father named as legal parents of boy; survey says -- teens not so liberal

MARRIAGE DIGEST: Canadian lesbians & father named as legal parents of boy; survey says -- teens not so liberal

Jan 12, 2007
By Michael Foust
Baptist Press

TORONTO, Ontario (BP)--The highest court in Ontario expanded the legal definition of the family Jan. 2, issuing a landmark ruling that allows a 5-year-old boy legally to have three parents -- two mothers and a father.

The lawsuit involves a lesbian couple, unnamed in the lawsuit, who several years ago began examining various ways they could have a child. They declined to use anonymous sperm donation and instead asked a family friend if he would become the biological father and also play a role in the child's upbringing, according to the International Herald Tribune. The man agreed, and the boy was born.

But under provincial law, the child could have only two parents. The man, along with the biological mother, were named the legal parents. The mother's same-sex partner could have adopted the boy, but the father would have lost his parental rights -- something the lesbian couple wanted to avoid. So, they filed a lawsuit asking that all three adults be considered parents.

The Ontario Court of Appeal agreed with the couple, ruling that legislators who wrote a 1970s law concerning the rights of out-of-wedlock children could not have foreseen future fertility advancements, according to Today's Family News, a news service of Focus on the Family Canada. The court is the same one that in 2003 issued a decision legalizing "gay marriage." ...
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