Court gives lesbians dual parenthood

INDIANAPOLIS -- Lesbian partners in Indiana who agree to conceive a child through artificial insemination are both the legal parents of any children born to them, the Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled.\nIn its unanimous ruling, the court chided state lawmakers for being slow to deal with advances in reproductive technology and urged the General Assembly to address the "current social reality" of unconventional families.\n"No (legitimate) reason exists to provide the children born to lesbian parents through the use of reproductive technology with less security and protection than that given to children born to heterosexual parents through artificial insemination," Judge Ezra H. Friedlander wrote in the ruling issued Wednesday.\n"Our paramount concern should be with the effect of our laws on the reality of children's lives."\nThe court's decision overturns a ruling by a Monroe Circuit Court judge who found that a Bloomington woman, Dawn King, had no legal standing with the girl born to her former partner, Stephanie Benham, because King was not a biological parent.\nFran Quigley, executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, called the ruling "an important first step" in providing legal protection to parents and children of nontraditional families.\nCourtney Joslin, an attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, said appellate courts in about a dozen states have issued similar rulings.\nThe decision is likely to have an impact on future custody and child support cases, and issues such as access to health insurance and inheritance through the non-biological parent, said Joslin and Quigley.\nPreviously in Indiana, the only way for same-sex partners to each attain legal parent status was through a "second-parent adoption" -- a costly undertaking that grants parental rights to a non-biological parent.\nHowever, some judges in Indiana have refused to allow the second-parent adoptions for same-sex partners.\nThis week's ruling does not address a challenge to Indiana's ban on same-sex marriage that is pending before the state Court of Appeals. But Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana, a group that promotes the traditional concept of family, said "this essentially renders marriage and fathers meaningless."\nFishers attorney Sean C. Lemieux, who represented King, said the case is about the rights of parents and children and was based on a state Supreme Court ruling involving a married heterosexual couple that had a child through artificial insemination.\nLemieux said the court stopped short of setting a standard for what constitutes a nontraditional parenting partnership, something that still must be resolved.\nIn King's case, he said, the existence of a partnership was clear, he said.\nKing and Benham shared their home, lives and finances for nine years. Benham was impregnated with semen donated by King's brother and King was present and participated in the child's birth.\nThe little girl, now 5 years old, recognized both women as her mothers, calling King "momma." After the pair split in January 2002, King paid child support and had regular visits with the child until July 2003, when Benham stopped accepting the support and denied King visitation.\n"I just want what any other parents wants -- a relationship with my child," said King, 35, of Bloomington.