PETITION CLOSED

  • The time period for signing this petition has ended.
The Uniform Parentage Act Must Include Same-Sex Parents and Partners
  1. Signatures
    801 out of 1,000
    Petitioning
    1. The President of the United States (+ 3 others)
      Petitioning
      close
      • The President of the United States
      • The U.S. Senate
      • The U.S. House of Representatives
      • Executive Director, National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (John A. Sebert)
  2. Created By
    Maia Spotts
    NYC, NY
About this Petition Petition Letter

The Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) is a set of definitions and guidelines, provided by the federal government, intended to protect children and give parents and Family Courts a reliable way to determine which two people are to be held responsible for the financial and emotional upbringing of a child. It answers that age old question, "Who's your daddy?" Which is all well and good when that's the question you need answering. What so many couples in this country need, gay and straight alike, is a set of rules more inclusive of the newly emerging non-traditional American family unit.

A simple reading of the main points of the Act (which was revised in 2000 to incorporate the Uniform Status of Children of Assisted Conception Act) and you'd think Rosie O'Donnell herself penned it. For instance: UPA § 202: “A child born to parents who are not married to each other has the same rights under the law as a child born to parents who are married to each other." Not to mention all the attention paid to non-biological spouses in situations that involve surrogates and sperm donors. Under the new UPA, there are ways to determine natural parents, but there are also de facto parents and legal parents and intended parents -- all legal jargon for non-biological, but totally loving and capable and dedicated, parent. Awesome, right?

Not quite. According to this fantastic report issued after the 2000 revision, the UPA "falls short of its purported primary purpose by unreasonably limiting parentage to married couples and biogenetic parents." Meaning, a judge who follows the UPA is still defining a pair of parents as one mother and one father who combined DNA to make a kid. Despite all that fun, seemingly inclusive language, the UPA turns out to be just a bunch of heterosexist gobblety-gook.

The results are inconsistent and abhorrent custody rulings that are destroying same-sex families and fueling the flames of anti-gay sentiment throughout the nation. A little recognition by the Federal Government would be a welcomed gesture of inclusivity for all parents, biological or not, gay or straight.

The Uniform Parentage Act must be revised to recognize biological and non-biological parents, and their same sex partners, as actual and legal parents regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation.

Recent Signatures

The Uniform Parentage Act Must Include Same-Sex Parents and Partners

Greetings,

The Uniform Parentage Act must be revised to recognize biological and non-biological parents, and their same-sex partners, as actual and legal parents regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation.

If the purpose of the UPA is to secure for the child certain benefits, including social security, inheritance rights, health insurance, child support and the enforcement of visitation and child support orders, it is without reason that the marital status or gender of the two parents be relevant. In fact, by limiting parental obligations to heterosexual couples, and in the case of Assisted Reproduction to married couples, the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws is denying such deserved benefits to a growing population of children of same-sex couples.

The Act, as revised in 2000, inappropriately presumes that the parents in question are of the opposite sex. The current Act, while recognizing the non-biological father in a sperm donor insemination, or the non-biological mother in a traditional surrogacy case, falls short of its purported purpose by unreasonably limiting parental rights and obligations to married couples and biogenetic parents.

Although the Act currently contains language regarding Assisted Reproduction, a method heavily relied upon by the gay community for family planning, it excludes that very community from coverage. For example, Article 7 precludes an unmarried partner of a birth mother from establishing parentage based on his or her intentions to co-parent with the mother, thereby leaving a child born to an unmarried couple through assisted reproduction with only one legal parent -- and only one adult responsible for child support. And Article 8 mandates that the “intended parents” in a gestational surrogacy case be married. Such language summarily denies these same rights to gay couples in those 44 states where gay marriage is not recognized.

While it is understood that a Uniform Act is meant to be a set of guidelines for each state’s own legislation, a recognition by the Federal Government, and the National Conference of Commissioner of Uniform State Laws, of same-sex parents, and their rights and obligations as parents, would bring a welcomed, and unfortunately rare, sense of inclusion for gay and lesbian parents, and their children.

I ask you to revise the UPA by expanding parental rights and obligations to those two people, regardless of gender and marital status, who hold themselves out as the intended parents of a child.

[Your name]

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