Canadian court redefines 'family'

[TalonRider]

Canadian court redefines 'family'

From correspondents in Ottawa

January 04, 2007 06:18am

Source: Melbourne's Herald Sun

A CANADIAN court has effectively redefined family structure in recognising a woman as the third parent of her longtime lesbian lover's young son.

The Ontario Court of Appeal angered religious groups when it ruled in the parental custody case late yesterday that the same-sex couple and the five-year-old boy's father could all legally claim to be his parents.

The decision reversed a 2003 lower court decision that allowed only one mother and one father, and in doing so dramatically redefined Canada's parental custody laws.

The case involved a lesbian couple who, after being together since 1990, decided to have a child with the help of a male friend who would donate sperm and become the child's father.

They wanted the court to recognise the woman who was not the biological mother as a parent. But they also wanted to avoid having her adopt the boy, which under the standing two-parent law would have required the father to give up custody.

In their ruling, the appeals court judges said Canada's 1970s child custody laws were outdated and did not reflect the best interests of the child in the case.

"There is no doubt that the legislature did not foresee for the possibility of declarations of parentage for two women, but that is a product of the social conditions and medical knowledge at the time," the judges wrote.

As such, "the act does not deal with, nor contemplate, the disadvantages that a child born into a relationship of two mothers, two fathers or, as in this case, two mothers and one father might suffer".

Opponents of the application lamented the decision, saying it opened the "floodgates" to absurd parental claims by step-parents, extended family and even adult members of a commune or a religious sect.

"Attacks on the family unit will ultimately lead to the destruction of our society," Mary Douglas of the Christian-backed Campaign Life Coalition said in a statement. "Where will the line be drawn on such multiple parent rulings?"

The biological mother's partner, as plaintiff in the case, argued in court that she planned the boy's birth with her partner, "tied her (partner's) shoes when she couldn't bend over to do it," "cut the umbilical cord" of the boy and is known to the child as his second mother.

Their appeal relied on constitutional arguments similar to those used to force Ottawa to change its marriage laws in June 2005 to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The boy's father supported the application and the Ontario provincial Government did not oppose the lawsuit.