This probably isn’t news to anyone up on LGBT issues, and it really should be a given to everyone but it took so long to get to court: the Ontario Court of Appeals has ruled that a boy whose custodial parents are a lesbian couple, but whose sperm donor father has been playing a significant role in his upbringing, has, in fact, three parents.
*fist in air, yelling right on*
It’s not up to the government or the courts how we as citizens and family members define a family. How painful is the memory of the time I applied for co-op housing, listing my cousin (and roommate) as “family” only to be told, ad nauseum, that we were not actually family at all. The couples said, “Family is, you know, couples.” The marrieds with kid said, “Family is married couples with kids. ” The marrieds without kids said it was married couples. The co-habiting ones said it was couples having sex. Actually, even the menage a trois said it was a circle of adults connected by sexual relationships.
You just can’t win.
But in Ontario, maybe you can.
The case is believed to be the first in Canada in which a child has more than two legal parents, said Peter Jervis, a lawyer for the partner. He said while there have been birth-registry cases in which lesbian couples sought parentage of their children, the fathers in those cases were not active or were unknown due to sperm donations.
In this case, the biological father, a friend of the lesbian couple, remains involved in the 5-year-old boy’s life at the request of the two women. The father would have lost his parental rights if the lesbian partner had been able to adopt the boy under Ontario law.
raincoaster 
David Crosby at it again, eh?
Seriously, if you were picking the perfect man, wouldn’t you err more on the side of Viggo Mortensen or Sean Bean than David Fucking Crosby??? If he’s your idea of the perfect man, no wonder you’re a lesbian is all I can say.
My lesbian friends say they don’t get it either, though. Maybe he has pungent pheromones?
They must like his music but then, I like movies with Viggo in ’em. Wait – I like movies with Sean Bean, too. He wouldn’t be my first choice but his accent is fetching.
Viggo and I could speak Danish to each other (I know a few phrases – just the important ones) and create a beautiful love child. Oh wait — this is under the assumption I’m a lesbian. Well, he’d still be my pick over Bean & Crosby.
It seems to me that this is less a victory for nontraditional families than it is a defeat for lesbian adoption. Rather than go through the usual channels, these people had to mount an extraordinary challenge to allow them to have the de facto condition or parenthood recognized (see “Rights, granting of”).
Worse yet, the court apparently took the Canadian Alliance For Marriage and Family seriously. And I’d imagine the Foaming Fathers Foundation or whatever the divorced dads’ rights group out there is will be having a field day.
I’d have rather seen the court establish that since gay marriage is legal, two people of any gender living with and raising the kid constitute parents and that therefore the mother’s partner can adopt.
Not at all, Metro: did you not see that the lesbian partner IS allowed to adopt the boy, but that she didn’t want to because that would cut off the biological father’s legal rights? You really must learn to click on the links and read the articles I post.
Stiletto Girl, don’t all men like the idea of having sex with a lesbian? Just tell Viggo your name is Amy and he’ll be chasing you all over town!
“The father would have lost his parental rights if the lesbian partner had been able to adopt the boy under Ontario law,” was what I read, along with the rest of it.
“Been able to”. Am I missing some meaning here?
I certainly didn’t see anywhere anything saying the partener held back from adopting for any reason. Perhaps that noted Ontario humidity is fogging up your coke-bottles?
I was pretty happy to hear about this, too.
Mmmmmm…Sean Bean and Viggo. Now there’s the perfect menage a trois.
“don’t all men like the idea of having sex with a lesbian?” — no, actually. All men like the idea of having sex with *two* lesbians…
Thank you for that clarification, Doug. You’re still gay.
Metro, you’re drinking something even stronger than Gin if you can’t see your error here. Suck it up, biatch!
And you must be back on the cheap stuff. Did you not read the same article you linked to?
It says very plainly that this legal convolution was brought about by the inability of the other mother to adopt. If you read something different into it, please tell me what those beady little bloodshot and different-coloured eyes of yours have spotted that I am, alas, too befudled with clean air and a lack of mould in my dwelling-place to notice?
I am IN Ontario, so I totally outrank you, so you should just suck it up (always the first choice when dealing with me).
I’ve always noticed that you outrank me–particularly when the air conditioning goes out. Or has the ointment helped?
As for sucking it up, it’s generally a pleasurable choice around here always. In dealing with you I prefer ninjas, booby traps, that sort of thing.
By the way–you DID get our package, right? I can’t imagine why it hasn’t gone off yet …
Didn’t you get the notices I dropped on various blogs? My gratitude for Squid knows no bounds: to make it official, THANK YOU METRO AND LORI FOR THE BATHTUB SQUID.
But I’m not sucking it anywhere. FYI
Y’know, the mind’s-eye image you have just generated, albeit in denial thereof, may one day disappear with the right kind of therapy. Possibly something involving a big stick.
And you have, as yet, not answered my question.
Yes, I got the Christmas package. Thank you. And I did TOO answer it.
I was referring to the Ontario adoption laws, and you’re welcome. And you may feel free to suck it anywhere you please, so long as you do not frighten the horses in the street.