US: California's supreme court on Monday became the first in the US to grant full parenting rights and obligations to gays and lesbians who have children.
In three closely-watched cases, the judges set rules in an area where changes in family structure and advances in technology have outpaced the evolution of legal principles.
In each case, they delivered a ruling which guaranteed that children born to gay couples had two legally-recognised parents.
Each of the cases involved a lesbian couple who had children and later split up. In one case, the court ruled unanimously that a lesbian mother could not avoid paying child support for her partner's biological children, who were conceived when the pair lived together.
In a second case, the judges, on a four-two vote, held that a woman who provided eggs to a partner who was then artificially inseminated was legally the children's second mother. This ruling came despite the fact that the egg provider, in a signed agreement with her partner, had waived her parental rights before the children were conceived.
The third case was decided largely on procedural grounds. The court said a woman was not entitled to a hearing seeking to end the parental rights of her former lover many years after the two had agreed to a court order stipulating that both women were parents. Other state courts have granted partial rights, in the form of custody or visitation, without giving full parental status.
The rulings came as the battle over the rights and obligations of gay families heats up across the state. The high court is to hear a case in about a year on the constitutionality of existing laws limiting marriage to heterosexuals.
Meanwhile, a bill that would allow same-sex marriage has been revived in the legislature.
For children born after January 1st of this year, the state legislature says that children of same-sex couples who are registered domestic partners should be treated the same as children born to a married couple.
However, the rules have been confusing and often inconsistent for gay couples who had failed to register, or who had children before the state's domestic partnership law came into effect. Monday's rulings sought to bring order to the legal confusion.
"We believe these rulings, taken together, are a victory for kids," said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for attorney general Bill Lockyer, whose office filed a brief in the child support case cited by the court.
Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, said: "Despite junk science and frustrating rulings like this, children still need a mother and a father." - (LA Times / Washington Post service)