In recent weeks, I have been
making the argument that adopting a unisex definition of
marriage will have unintended consequences. There will be no
institution in which adults not only make a public promise to care
for each other, but also any children their sexual union happens to
produce. Case in point is a bill being considered in California
that tries to grapple with life post-traditional marriage by
allowing a child to have
more than two legal parents.
Nor is this just a mom, stepdad, dad kind of arrangement. The
Sacremento Bee reports:
State Sen. Mark Leno is pushing legislation to allow a child to
have multiple parents.
“The bill brings California into the 21st century, recognizing
that there are more than Ozzie and Harriet families today,” the San
Francisco Democrat said.
Surrogate births, same-sex parenthood and assisted reproduction
are changing society by creating new possibilities for
nontraditional households and relationships.
The genesis of this bill?
SB 1476 stemmed from an appellate court case last year involving
a child’s biological mother, her same-sex partner, and a man who
had an affair with the biological mother and impregnated her while
she was separated temporarily from her female lover.
The Bee gives some example of who would benefit:
- A family in which a man began dating a woman while she was
pregnant, then raised that child with her for seven years. The
youth also had a parental relationship with the biological
father.
- A same-sex couple who asked a close male friend to help
them conceive, then decided that all three would raise the
child.
- A divorce in which a woman and her second husband were the
legal parents of a child, but the biological father maintained
close ties as well.
What could possibly go wrong? But when you abandon even the
ideal of traditional marriage, what choice do you have?