Lesbian partner must pay child support

I find it interesting that a court would order that after separating from her partner, a lesbian who adopted the children would have to pay child support, yet, cannot obtain marriage under state law.

I would argue that, in the absence of marriage, she has no parental rights to the children. That may seem cruel to some, but I happen to believe that marriage puts a lot of those protections in place along with a lot of the obligations for child custody.

Here, the court is basically saying, “We won’t allow you to get married, but, we are going to hold you to the adoption.” That’s unfair. I would challenge it to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

This is exactly why we need marriage. Marriage would not always work in our favor. If the lesbian couple had been married, this would not have been an issue. She may not have liked the fact that she was responsible for paying support, but she would have opted to get married. Also, in an emergency situation, there’s no guarantee that a hospital would honor the adoption, especially from a same-sex partnership.

There is no substitute for marriage in these matters. The court, in this decision, has said once again that our relationships will be honored, when it is convenient to do so, without giving us the benefits of marriage.

INDIANAPOLIS Feb 19, 2005 — A lesbian who split with her partner after adopting the woman’s biological children must pay child support, the Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled.

The woman adopted her partner’s children in 1997. A few years after their breakup, she tried to vacate the adoption. Around the same time, the children’s biological mother, who had remarried and divorced a man, filed for child support.

A three-judge panel ruled Wednesday that the woman who adopted the children must contribute to the cost of raising them.

“Whether a parent is a man or a woman, homosexual or heterosexual, or adoptive or biological, in assuming that role, a person also assumes certain responsibilities, obligations, and duties,” Judge John G. Baker wrote in a 22-page ruling.

“That person may not simply choose to shed the parental mantle because it becomes inconvenient, seems ill-advised in retrospect, or becomes burdensome because of a deterioration in the relationship with the children’s other parent,” the decision said. (source)