[Vision2020] Same-sex Couple Wins Policy Fight

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (December 13, 2008) Spokesman Review.

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Same-sex couple wins policy fight

State officials will now let married same-sex couples list both their 
names on their children's birth certificates in a policy shift deeply 
important to many gays and lesbians.

The decision, which echoes similar provisions in states that allow gay 
marriages or civil unions, is one of many changes since Gov. David 
Paterson ordered state agencies in May to respect out-of-state gay 
marriages.

The state Health Department said Friday it had agreed to the change, which 
came after a lesbian couple who are expecting a baby filed a lawsuit. The 
change would apply statewide except in New York City, which is considering 
revamping its own birth certificate forms to accommodate same-sex couples.

Under state law, a woman's husband is automatically deemed a parent of a 
child the pair conceives through artificial insemination, whether or not 
he is the genetic father. Gay couples have complained about having to jump 
through legal hoops to secure equivalent parental rights.

Carolyn Trzeciak and Nina Sheldon Trzeciak of Ulster County, who got 
married in Canada in 2006, sued last month. Nina Sheldon Trzeciak is 
carrying their first child, conceived through in vitro fertilization.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapse Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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