Archive Article

Meet the Parents:

MAJOR REPORT - January 2002 |

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MAJOR REPORT - January 2002

The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL) is an active campaigner for legal and social equality for lesbians and gay men. An area of vast injustice, where lesbians and gay men continue to be denied basic human rights, is parenting. Lesbian and gay parents are regularly discriminated against in the community, in schools, in the provision of health care to their children and in relation to leisure activities.
In Australia we like to believe that we recognise diversity and give a 'fair go' to all, yet very little is done to challenge the intolerance and discrimination thrust upon lesbian and gay families including their children. All the worse when people make excuses for such discriminatory behaviour and for the lack of legal recognition of lesbian and gay families. Such excuses however fly in the face of all credible research, as this report ‘Meet The Parents’ clearly demonstrates.
The major findings of this report conclude that the sexuality of a child's parents has no bearing on their development or well being. It is the care and love put into a
child's upbringing that is of utmost importance, and lesbians and gay men demonstrate just as good capabilities at loving and caring for their children as their heterosexual counterparts.
Difficulties arise however for lesbian and gay families as a result of the denial of basic rights and social bigotry. Legal rights currently denied include:
• Gay and lesbian couples cannot both be legally recognised as parents
• The non-biological parent cannot adopt the child without the birth parent
giving up all parental rights.
• Access to donor insemination is not universally available from health clinics.
• The Human Tissue Act 1983 (NSW) prevents most gay men from legally
donating sperm.
• Adoption is not an option for lesbian and gay couples.
• Laws covering superannuation do not recognise the dependency of a child of a lesbian or gay couple when a contributor is a non-biological parent.
Anyone interested in the research or involved in the battle for legal and social equality for lesbian and gay families will find this report both informative and useful.
For GLRL, the report clearly backs up what we have always been fighting for, and provides undeniable evidence that current circumstances are unjust and discriminatory. It thus provides us with an important tool in our campaign work for equal rights. After all, lesbian and gay parents and their children suffer from others' bigotry, not from their own loving families.Alexandra Sosnov and Anthony M. Schembri Convenors, Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby Inc.

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