a little girl called 'm.c
TRANSCRIPT
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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: [email protected] 760/295-92782007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.
A Little Girl Called M.C.
The Collateral Damage from Same-Sex
Marriage
By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.
This article was first published September25, 2012, at Break Point.org.
The policy proposal known as same-sex
marriage is actually a proposal to redefine
marriage. Instead of being a gender-basedinstitution oriented toward the procreation of
children and the good of the spouses, what is
called same-sex marriage makes marriage
into a genderless institution, oriented towardthe good of adults only. Any possible
negative consequences for children,
according to this way of thinking, are not
worth considering. We, and the childrenthemselves, must simply accept any negative
outcomes as collateral damage on the road
to the nirvana of marriage equality.
A little girl known only to the public asM.C. is a public victim of the redefinition of
marriage in California. If lukewarm
Christians are tempted to sit out the
marriage battle because they find it toocontentious and emotional, they might give
a moments thought to the situation of M.C.
Little M.C. was born in March 2009, to a
woman named Melissa. Melissa hadcontracted a marriage with a woman named
Irene in October 2008, during the window of
time that same-sex marriage was permitted
in California. Melissa had become pregnant
with M.C. by a man named Jesus in thesummer of 2008, prior to the state-
sanctioned marriage ceremony.
Melissa and M.C. lived with Irene for 3 or 4
weeks after M.C.s birth. When Melissa
moved out, Irene attempted to obtain jointlegal and physical custody of M.C. Melissa
got in touch with Jesus, the childs father,
who had since moved to Oklahoma. He senther money, and stayed in contact with her.
Melissa was not happy with Irenescontinuing attempts to be involved with her
and M.C. In September 2009, Melissas new
boyfriend, Jos, attacked Irene, stabbing herso severely that she had to be hospitalized.
Melissa was imprisoned, charged with
accessory to attempted murder.
M.C. was taken into foster care. At that
point, the urgent question arose: Who areher parents? Who can and should care for
M.C. while her mother, Melissa, serves her
prison sentence?
The courts found that M.C., for all intents
and purposes, had three parents, recognizedunder different parts of the law. Melissa
counted as a mother because she gave birth
to the child. Irene was married to Melissawhen Melissa gave birth to M.C. The courts
applied a concept called the presumption of
paternity. Under that concept, a womans
husband is presumed to be the father of anychildren she gives birth to during the life of
their union. Thanks to the redefinition of
marriage to be a genderless institution, the
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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: [email protected] 760/295-92782007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.
family courts felt obligated to do a gender-
neutral reading of this statute, transformingthe presumption of paternity into a
gender-neutral presumption of parentage.
Therefore, Irene counted as a presumed
mother, or maybe I should say a presumed
generic parent. However, she was not inany position to take care of M.C. in the short
term, due to her injuries from being stabbed.
She also had a history of domestic violence.
What about Jesus? No court ever denied that
Jesus was a father. Nor did any court findhim an unfit father in any way. So with
Melissa in prison and Irene in the hospital,
why couldnt the court simply give M.C. toJesus, her biological father?
The courts declined to place M.C. with Jesusbecause this would jeopardize what they saw
as the childs interest in reunification with
Irene. Bear in mind that Irene was not thebiological mother. She was not an adoptive
mother. She had lived with Melissa and
M.C. for about three or four weeks after thechild was born. Irene, in short, was not a
mother to M.C. in any meaningful sense.
Irene was a presumed mother for one
reason and one reason only: same-sex
marriage. That marriage is what promptedthe court to call Irene a presumed mother,
under a gender-neutral reading of the
Uniform Parentage Act.
One of the attorneys for M.C. pointed out
the absurdity of a gender-neutral reading ofthis statute, substituting for the husband,
who is almost always the childs other
biological parent, a female partner whocould never possibly have been the childs
other biological parent.
But no matter: The court was attempting to
do its job, impossible though that may have
been in the circumstances. Irene was foundto be a presumed mother. And since
California law does not actually permit a
child to have three parents, the courtscouldnt quite bring themselves to place the
child with Jesus. All he had going for him
was the fact that he was the biologicalfather, not the father created by the legal
institution of marriage.
So, naturally, the next step in the long march
toward creating a gender-neutral society is
to declare that children in California canhave three parents. State Senator Mark Leno
and head of the LGBT caucus in Sacramento
introduced a bill allowing family courts to
recognize three parents, if, in their opinion,this would be in the best interests of the
child. The three-parent bill passed both
houses of the California Assembly and iswaiting for Governor Browns signature. If
he does nothing by September 30, 2012, it
will automatically be passed into law.[Editor's note: Governor Brown vetoed it!
Crisis averted, at least this time around!]
The solution to this tragic case is not to
amend the law to allow three parents. The
solution is to amend the law to remove thepossibility of a person unrelated to the child
either by biology or adoption, being counted
as a parent. The solution is to stop requiring
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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: [email protected] 760/295-92782007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.
a gender-neutral reading of a statute that is
based on the biological, gendered facts ofhuman reproduction.
In other words, the way to have kept M.C.out of foster care was to abandon the idea of
marriage equality. In fact, the voters of
California did exactly that, when theypassed Proposition 8, affirming that the term
marriage can only be used to refer to the
union of a man and a woman. It is marriageequality that created the tragic
circumstances of this case.
Marriage is a complex social institution. Not
everyone agrees that the essential public
purpose of marriage is to attach mothers andfathers to each other and to their children.
But I do not see how anyone can deny that
attaching children to their mothers andfathers is one of the significant social
purposes of marriage. And I do not see how
any reasonable person can deny that same-
sex couples and opposite-sex couples aredifferent with regard to this purpose. It is
simply not possible to treat same-sex
couples and opposite-sex couples identicallyin all the areas of law that marriage touches.
M.C.s situation had an obvious and muchless radical solution than a triple-parenting
bill: Give the child to her father. She had
been in foster care from September 2009until at least May 2011, when the last appeal
was heard. All that time in foster care was
totally unnecessary. She was collateraldamage from the ill-conceived idea of
genderless marriage. Her fate since then is
not part of the public record.
This new view of the family gives judges
way too much power, and children far toolittle consideration. This is the world we are
leaving to our children and grandchildren.
Christians inside and outside of Californiahave a responsibility to make their voices
heard.
Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is an
economist and the Founder and President of
theRuth Institute, a nonprofit educationalorganization devoted to bringing hope and
encouragement for lifelong married love.
She is also the author ofLove and
Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise aVillage andSmart Sex: Finding Life-Long
Love in a Hook-Up World.
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