2001 Election
Wrap-Up
Meet
the Parents
Upcoming Events
Groundbreaking reform for WA
Co-convenors Report
THE LOBBY TEAM
Female Convenor
Alex Sosnov
Male Convenor
Anthony Schembri
Secretary
Andrew Pickles
Treasurer
Jenny Mann
Committee Members
Grant Colquhuon
Luke Gahan
Shane Garland
Nadine Lutherborrow
Gillian Mahoney
Nikki Maloney
Jenni Millbank
Anthony Powell
Kathy Sant
Naomi Sharp
Suzy Tay
To Contact Us:
Phone: 02 9360 6650
Fax: 9331 7963
e-mail: glrl@rainbow.net.au
NEWSLETTER: February 2002 |
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Meet the Parents
Meet the Parents, a new report written for the Lobby by committee member Jenni Millbank, is sure to become a fantastic resource for anyone wanting information about gay and lesbian parenting. The report is the most comprehensive overview of research done in this area ever produced, and will be an invaluable tool for lawyers, researchers and policy makers. Building on the work of the Lobbys 2001 report on parenting, it is yet more evidence that discrimination against gay and lesbian parents and their children must be challenged and changed.
The Lobby 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 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 childs upbringing that is of utmost importance, and lesbians and gay men are just as capable of 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; and
- 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 the Lobby, 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.
Meet the Parents will be launched at Fair Day (see "Upcoming Events"), and will soon be available on the Lobby website.