We are the parents of a baby boy, born fittingly on Mother’s Day, May 11th 2014. Both of us wished for, planned, hoped, prayed, grew excited, laboured, welcomed… and now love and cherish our baby.

Although he has two parents - one who physically gave birth to him, the other her partner in love and life and who decided with her to conceive a child – one is automatically accepted as his parent and can be registered on his birth certificate, but because we are not a heterosexual couple, the other isn’t and can’t.

As it currently stands, the Family Relationships Act SA 1975 discriminates against same-sex couples and the children of same-sex parents,  by requiring same-sex couples to have lived together for 3 out of the last 4 years before conceiving a baby.

South Australia alone of all Australian jurisdictions discriminates against the child of same-sex parents by withholding from the child an automatic right to have both her or his parents recorded on their birth certificate, forcing those who have not lived together for the requisite time period to seek a court declaration that their relationship was one that ‘qualified’ them to be co-parents to their child. This is time-consuming, costly and does not guarantee that this actual child, this real-life, living, breathing son of ours will get to be registered as having two parents... Our child is disadvantaged by having  ‘one legally invisible parent’ when he has been so consciously created and with clear intention from the outset that he should be born to two parents - who just happen to be mother and co-mother rather than mother and father. Opposite-sex partners need not be in any form of prescribed relationship when they access assisted insemination via a donor, and can then register the resulting birth with the male partner’s name as father/co-parent without question. The biology or technology involved is not important.

Partners who conceive using donor sperm should be treated equally regardless of whether they are in an opposite or same-sex relationship. Children have the right to know who their parents are, and to the legal responsibility and protection of both.

We are asking for your support to help us lobby the South Australian Parliament to amend discriminatory aspects of the Family Relationships Act 1975.

The right to non-discrimination and the right to equality before the law are fundamental principles of international human rights law. The Australian Human Rights Commission Final Report of 2007 titled Same-Sex: Same Entitlements states at chapter 3.5.4 that ‘those states which do not recognise both same-sex parents of a child, in circumstances where both heterosexual parents would be recognised, may be in breach of article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child’.

Please sign our petition if you believe that all Australian parents and children should have the same rights, without discrimination.

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Tweet about this campaign using the hashtag #Equality4Tadhg and visit and share our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Equality4Tadhg to support the campaign to end discrimination

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