You know that Same-Sex Marriage is truly recognized under the law when, in order to dissolve the relationship, the court needs to be involved in a divorce proceeding.

 you also know it is a Same-Sex Marriage because restrictions and requirements not demanded of heterosexual couples are of Gay couples.

When I lived in Oklahoma, I was privileged to have among my friends a young woman who was very dedicated to helping Gay youth make it through life in a very red state not simply by surviving but thriving.

She organized youth support groups, got kids the help they needed, physical and mental, and, where others may have failed in their attempt, organized a homeless shelter for Gay youth who would not be safe in other homeless shelters because of their sexual orientation in the land of Jesus.

In her personal life she fostered and adopted children, and at one point she and her wife decided to have a child of their own.

That meant it would be through some form of surrogacy with one or neither bearing the child, one or both donating eggs, and finding a donor they could trust. This was a serious and deep conversation.

They had made their decision after the Supreme Court recognized same sex marriages as constitutional and, therefore, legal, so there should have been no legal impediments placed on their parenting decision as it was one common among heterosexual couple in a similar situation where, perhaps, one could not supply their own egg or potent sperm.

I don’t know particulars of their discussion as it is their business and not mine, but one became the “gestational parent” and, to be a true family, my friend had her name on the birth certificate as the other parent.

Sadly, for their own reasons the couple separated and officially divorced, a very strange but strong evidence that same sex marriages are legal if to dissolve the relationship the process is a legal court procedure, not just packing your things and simply moving out.

The courts in Oklahoma are not all that kind to same sex parents.

When I first arrived there, a judge removed a gestational parent’s right to child custody based solely on her being a Lesbian, giving full custody to her ex-husband who had a criminal record, was known to be a town’s “Oh, God, it’s him again”, and was fond of drugs and drink. He was heterosexual, so these things were dismissible when compared to a woman who was a successful professional who could raise her child in a home safer than a house of booze, drugs, and shady characters, because her being a Lesbian, by default, made her a bad person in spite of observable evidence to the contrary.

The ex-husband professed Christianity and heterosexuality so that alone negated all the negatives the child would be raised with.

At that time, beyond not allowing Gay citizens of the state to adopt children, the state would not recognize a Gay adoptive parent from another state where such adoptions were allowed and legal, and this brought up that question that if a Gay couple from such a state were to move to Oklahoma voluntarily or by corporate transfer with the child having been carried to term by one of the couple, would the non-birth parent whose name was on the adoption papers lose all parental rights or would both lose parental rights if someone arbitrarily objected officially to their adopting in some sort of legal procedure.

The state could remove the child from both parents, or render one a stranger because the state did not recognize the adoption even, as I said, it was legal in the original state in which the adoption took place.

In my friend’s case, a temporary order was issued by a judge, blocking her custody rights because she is not the “gestational parent.”

The judge stated that as the non-gestational parent she could have pursued any legal remedy to establish parental rights and based the decision on her failure to do so and that, because the child was not a product of the marriage, i.e. not produced from sex between the two parents, the judge ruled that she could not apply for custody of the child.

In spite of the couple having planned together to have the child and their names both appearing on the birth certificate, the non-gestational parent, according to the judge, should have gone further than the birth certificate and gone through the red tape, lawyer and court fees, and additional legal paperwork to claim parentage something not required of  heterosexual parents in the same position if neither their egg or sperm were involved in a surrogacy with both names on the birth certificate.

Oklahoma courts are not friendly toward Gay couples in a court system being as they are heavily influenced by Oklahoma’s version of Christianity and have a record like the earlier mentioned situation to back that up.

Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that non-biological parents in same-sex relationships can establish custody and visitation rights just as heterosexual parents do.

In the case producing this decision, after a divorce the birth parent had denied custody and visitation to her former partner. Although the non-birth parent lost her suit to be granted these things at the district court and Court of Civil Appeals, the Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed those rulings of the lower courts because the couple in the case were not married but in a domestic partnership.

In another case this same court ruled that the first ruling does not apply to legally married couples.

Unmarried Gay and heterosexual couples could establish legal co-parentage by adoption.

My friend was one half of a marriage.

Married heterosexuals’ co-parentage is established by the name on the birth certificate.

Under current law any child born within a marriage is legally parented by the married couple whose names appear on the birth certificate, but this judge is ignoring that in favor of requiring that same sex couples, unlike opposite sex couples, must go through additional steps that come with legal and court fees to solidify parental rights.

This is an additional burden placed on same sex couples that is not required of straight ones in a country with marriage equality, and the process could take months to years to finalize, requiring high legal and court costs to have the birth certificated respected or meet additional requirements not burdening opposite sex couples in the same position.

If the final decision is that the non-gestational parent has no right to claim custody and parenthood over her child, it could have an effect on all same-sex parents in that state. While the parents are not treated equally under the law, the child will have only one parent unless the other parent files for adoption and custody.

Once your name is on the birth certificate and it is filed as the law may require that should be the end of it.

If a heterosexual couple has a child by surrogacy, depending on the origin of the egg and sperm, are they held to this long costly procedure, or will some find out that because they did not fill out additional paperwork, they are actually legal strangers to their child as Gay couples are considered?

In spite of having done all the discussing, taking steps to make a house a home for the child, going through the pregnancy and all that is required, having their names on the birth certificate, and raising the child as the married couple they are, same-sex parents who are legally married, these parents and their relationships with their children are subject to court decisions in a state where the Oklahoma version of the Bible too often is used to arrive at civil law decisions.

A judge’s decision has control over marriage and parenting on a case by case basis it seems, and, as we all know, judges’ decision are not always consistent, nor agreed on universally by all judges.

The first case cited lost twice in the lower courts but prevailed in the State Supreme Court, but then this same court ruled in such a way that while, unmarried heterosexual couples have parental rights but legally married Gay ones don’t unless they take additional action not required of non-Gay people.

With all the present discussion of parental rights, these would be hard to establish if courts keep changing the rules of the parent game and like purging the voter rolls might move to purging the parent list

One person should not risk losing their child simply because they are not the gestational parent. Children and parents should have some degree of certainty that their rights and relationships won’t be rewritten by the court on a case-by-case basis, or the personal, political or religious beliefs of a judge.

Past cases show that when it comes to rulings dealing with Gay people, and in this case Gay parentage, Judges in Oklahoma tend to favor the heterosexual model and while leaving straight couples alone, come up with all kinds of legal modifications when it comes to a Gay couple’s being assigned additional burdens.

Non-gestational parents should be recognized as parents especially as both names on the birth certificate acknowledges that the gestational parent recognized the parentage role of the non- gestational one.

.

.

.

.

.

.