TOP CALIF. COURT TO HEAR LESBIAN CUSTODY DISPUTE: From the San Francisco Chronicle

Battles between estranged lesbian partners over child custody, visitation and financial support will reach the California Supreme Court on Tuesday in a hearing to determine the ground rules for parental disputes between same-sex couples.

Later this week, the court will hear another lesbian pair's discrimination case with possible implications for the looming legal war over same-sex marriage.

Tuesday's three-hour hearing in San Francisco combines three lawsuits from different counties with one central issue: whether a member of a same-sex couple who helped to plan a childbirth and raise the child should be considered a legal parent, regardless of biological ties or marital status.

A majority of lower courts have said no, limiting parental rights to the birth mother unless her partner has formally adopted the child. The state's high court is due to decide the issue within 90 days.

"What's at stake is whether children of same-sex parents will receive the same protection of their emotional needs as children of heterosexual parents," said Jill Hersh, lawyer for a Marin County woman who is seeking to become a legal parent of twin girls she helped raise with her now-estranged partner. "Are we going to treat children differently based upon the status of their parents?"

But attorney Matthew Staver of Liberty Counsel, a conservative Florida- based organization that has filed arguments in all three cases opposing expansion of parental status beyond the birth mother, said courts should not redefine parenthood.

"I think what's at stake is the definition of family," he said. "If somebody can cohabitate and, by virtue of that, develop parental bonds, and thus parental rights, I think that undermines the biological parent's parental authority. If you start defining family by mere emotions, I think that undermines the core of the family itself."

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posted by Eve at 10:16 AM VOTE

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