The state of California is considering a measure that would allow kids to have more than two legally recognized parents—a move that would broaden the definition of what family really means. This would mean that adoptions, theoretically, could be more inclusive: birth parents could have the same legal standing as adoptive parents. Then there’s the case of Bill Delany’s two little girls who spend three nights a week with Delany and his husband, and the remainder of the week with their birth mothers—a lesbian couple. “This is about looking at the reality of children’s lives, which are heterogeneous, as opposed to maintaining a fiction of homogeneity,” says Nancy Polikoff, a professor at the American University Washington College of Law. “Families are different from one another. If the law will not acknowledge that, then it’s not responding to the needs of children who do not fit into the one-size-fits-all box.” The proposed law is not without its critics. “Advocates for same-sex marriage are very interested in separating parentage and marriage from biological parentage, because that’s the one thing same-sex couples never can achieve,” says Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council. (New York Times)
