A Florida judge has approved the adoption of a 22-month-old baby girl that will list three people as parents on her birth certificate -- a married lesbian couple and a gay man.
The decision ends a two-year paternity fight between the couple and a friend of the women who donated his sperm to father the child but later sought a larger role in the girl's life.
The ruling means the child's birth certificate will include a biological father and both women as parents in an unusual arrangement approved recently by a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge.
The women, Maria Italiano, 43, and Cher Filippazzo, 38, had made several unsuccessful attempts to become parents using fertility clinics.
They then turned to Italiano's hair dresser, Massimiliano Gerina, and asked if he would provide his sperm for artificial insemination.
More details of the arrangement:
Under the judge's decision, the two women will have sole parental rights, although Gerina will be allowed to visit the child. He will not be expected to provide child support.
"We're trying to do the right thing for Emma," Filippazzo said. "We want Emma to have it all, and we believe by doing it this way, including him in a birthday or Thanksgiving, it'll be a nice addition for her."
"We believe the best interest for Emma is for him to have a role in her life, but not as a parent," she said. "The role is this is mommy's good friend who helped your moms have you because they wanted you so badly."
19 Comments
Someone needs to break it to these human traffickers that Emma, like every child, has exactly one mother and one father.
If these chicks are trying to do the right thing for Emma, as they falsely claim, why were they in court for two years?
Poor Emma. Mommy's good friend? Wrong. He's her father, regardless of the lies that spew from their delusional minds.
Children are not pets.
They are not trying to do the right thing. They are deliberately doing the wrong thing.
The mother's sexual partner of the same sex, that is the person who is mommy's friend and she ought to have no relationship with the child except through the child's mother or father.
So the court put the father aside, as the father but as a non-parent who has not relinquished parental status because .... supposedly he is not the parent of his own child. That twist is a signal that they are doing the wrong thing, not the right thing.
Next, with the father pushed aside, he can have a relationship with his daughter only through the mother's relationship with this child's non-mother. The absurdity ought to make even the gay advocates opposed to abuse of the law for the sake of gay identity politics.
This case also rather obviously ties SSM with the use of third party procreation. No SSMer can deny that much.
Three wives on a marriage certificate for the sake of the children.
Three parents on a birth certificate for the sake of the children?
WOW! Just wow! Now who's to say that it stops at THREE parents. Before you know it, there will be four or five. Why stop at three??? On the birth certifcate, it needs to list who BIOLOGICALLY created the child. Have we really reached this point in society, we are so confused! God has given us over to our own ways! THANK GOD we have not reached a point where we can genetically combine two eggs or two sperm of two different people to create a child from two females, or two males...
Some of these judges need IQ tests and strait jackets. This judge's decision should immediately be overturned and his appointment should be suspended. This baby is already in over her head with this unhealthy "parenting" situation. Publishing blatant lies on her birth certificate just makes things worse. This is why those people should never be allowed near children. Their aim is to confuse and indoctrinate in order to push their agenda and in this time of political correctness, they're actually getting lunatics to listen to them. Unbelievable.
This has to do with adoption by non-married partners. That they keep a minimal relationship with the third party who engendered the baby with one of the women, is the new facet.
I didn't know Florida has same-sex marriage approved, so perhaps it has approved same-sex unions. I checked this out superficially and a Domestic Partnership Registry has been set up in some of Florida's main cities. How a Domestic Partnership is allowed to adopt a child one in the same partnership engendered is something new to me.
The adoption in this case is NOT to grant the paternity to the partnership, but to withdraw the paternity from the father offering him, instead, only visitation rights as if he was a friend of the 'family'.
If the government wants to get into these potentially complicated triangles, they are going to create a lot of work for lawyers. THAT is what i think drives these elaborate custodial arrangements. And so. . . the child will grow up in this context, because a judge said so. What do the citizens of Florida say to this? Will be interesting. . .
If a child can have "two moms" then there is no reason to limit the number of parents a child can have. Once you remove biology as the guardrail, then it's the "best interests of the child" standard, meaning judges decide the parentage of children on a case by case basis.
Such a ridiculous myth these woman are trying to push to this child. "He's not your 'father'; he's the good friend that helped us have you."
Hope that some brave adult children of absent "donor dads" will speak up about whether this is a good idea from their perspective. I remember a TV program where two mothers who used the same sperm donor had children, and when the children were young adults, one found the other half-sibling against the mother's wishes. Time will tell.
The time bomb lying in the lack of regulation of reproductive technology is unintentional incest. When you have a single sperm donor fathering 100+ children, you risk the birth defects that will iterate for generations if two of these related individuals meet and produce offspring together.
France limits access to reproductive technology to married couples. Of course, this will change if they redefine marriage to include homosexuals. The possibilities are endless when eggs and sperm are for sale and wombs can be rented from poor women in India. What a mess.
lhf wrote: "The time bomb lying in the lack of regulation of reproductive technology is unintentional incest."
Very good point, and one I seldom see mentioned. It's a very real and serious issue. Of course, part of the public interest in marriage is giving children knowledge of their lineage. This is yet another important aspect of marriage that pseudo-marriage advocates seek to abandon.
Hmmm. Anyone else recall a certain football player who was castigated for stating that ssm "leads to chaos"? This story is only one more in a rapidly growing list that proves his point. People want to talk about "being on the right side of history". He was spot on.
But Dan, Florida does not have marriage equality. What does this case have to do with gay marriage. Marriage is not a requirement for producing a child.
What a beautiful story! You all don't realize what a lucky girl Emma is, to have three people who love her dearly like that. Good for this lesbian couple, and good for the child. "Family" is not a black and white concept reserved just for heterosexual Christians. It's a term that belongs to everyone, parents and children united by love!
Bobby, engaging in same-sex sexual behavior, feeling same-sex sexual attraction, identifying as gay -- none of that is required of those who'd SSM; and registration with the government is not a requirement for any of that.
Oops. You shot yourself in the foot.
And this absurd court decision is based on the very stuff that is touted in the pro-SSM complaint and as justifying the pro-SSM remedy.
Guess you shot the other foot as well. Thanks for the happy dance.
Chairm - for the sake of all posters here please once tell us what you are talking about. Marriage equality simply treats those born homosexual (a minority) as equal to those born heterosexual (a majority). Those born homosexual have same sex attraction and will for the most part identify as gay. Whether or not they chose to marry is entirely up to them.
Bobby: - "for the sake of all posters here please once tell us what you are talking about."
Florida, for your information, does have marriage equality. The marriage laws apply "equally" to everyone. It can't get more equal than that.
Thanks for bringing that up. SSm advocates are a great help
@Bobby, I understand what Chairm is talking about. He's using your own argumentation against you.
You noted in post #12 that marriage is not a requirement for producing a child in an effort to insinuate that marriage has nothing to do with laws regarding parentage or children. But when subjected to your own standards, your own claims fail.
Marriage couldn't possibly be about treating "homosexual[s] (a minority) as equal to those born heterosexual" if being gay isn't a requirement for entering into a ssm. In Massachusetts, are there any laws on the books demanding that parties to a ssm prove that they are gay?
Furthermore, entering into a ssm isn't a requirement in order for people to lawfully identify as gay, engage in homosexual behavior, or feel attracted to the same sex. People in Massachusetts identify as gay and/or engage in homosexual behavior all the time without being registered as married to a person of the same sex.
In regards to the court decision, Chairm is noting that this case which you claim has nothing to do with ssm is based on the arguments used by those who advocate for ssm. They often note that ssm is needed so that non-biological parents don't have to adopt the children of their same-sex partners.
I've studied Chairm's arguments. Sometimes they are very complex and take a second reading or more contemplation to understand. At times I am concerned that his arguments fly over the heads of even intelligent SSMers who are genuinely interested in understanding their opponents.
So with the above argument from Chairm, which is quite powerful, I tried to re-word it and bring it to a level that everyone can understand. I hope for Chairm's clarification if I missed or misinterpreted anything from his argument.
Chairm has content, organized thinking, a legal mind or training. Unlike myself, he is always nice. Actually, when we read or write comments, we are polishing our arguments, and testing them out, for the day we will have the opportunity to pass on 3 or 4 words to another person who is confused on these matters.
Yes, who the argument is directed to determines the level of language, but that's difficult to decide on a comment string. Thanks for your patience, Ash and Chairm. Explanations are always well received.
Little man, I definitely agree that commenting on these threads and debating SSMers help to refine our arguments for a time when we will speak to others who may or may not support ssm, but who, like you said, are a little confused (or uninformed) on the matter.