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January 8, 2007

Canada Makes it Official: Heather Can (legally) have 2 Mommies and a Daddy

Marc Comtois

Back in October, I posted, and Justin elaborated (and I further elaborated) about a NY Times story ("Gay Donor or Gay Dad")on the the inherent difficulties and consequences of having 2 lesbian women and a male sperm donor (and possibly his partner) all seeking to press a claim on the parenthood of a child. Yet, these were informal (ie; not legally recognized) relationships. Canada has taken the next logical step from legalizing same-sex marriage to sanctioning a legalizing tripartite parental scheme. Now, in Canada, Tommy has two mommies and a daddy--the judges said so. As Stanley Kurtz writes:

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the court held its ruling until just after Canada’s conservatives failed to reverse judicially imposed same-sex marriage in parliament. Now we know how long after the secure nationalization of same-sex marriage it can take for further radical changes to emerge: about a month...We’ve got a clear instantiation of the slippery slope here.