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California Bill to Advance Children’s Best Interests Passes State Assembly

SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Assembly today voted 51-26 in support of Senate Bill 1476, which will allow judges to recognize the reality that some children have more than two parents.

This bill makes it possible for a third parent—such as a gay father who is raising a child with a lesbian couple—to have legal rights and responsibilities to protect and provide care for the child.

The bill provides that when more than two adults meet the criteria to be a legal parent under existing California law, a court has the flexibility to rule that a child has three legal parents. In order to do so, the court must find that recognizing three parents is required to protect the child’s best interests.

This bill is necessary because in a recent California Court of Appeals case, the appellate court ruled that courts can never recognize more than two legal parents, regardless of the situation and even if recognizing a third parent would protect the child from harm. The court agreed that there could be cases where recognizing more than two parents would protect a child’s best interests and called on the legislature to address this issue.

“We live in a world today where courts are dealing with diverse circumstances that have reshaped California families,” said Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who authored the bill. “This legislation gives courts the flexibility to protect the best interests of a child who is being supported financially and emotionally by those parents. It is critical that judges have the ability to recognize the roles of all parents, especially when a family is in distress and a child's security is a concern.”

Added National Center for Lesbian Rights Family Protection Project Director Cathy Sakimura: “Families come in many forms, and all children deserve to have their families protected by the law. Legal recognition gives children tremendous legal, emotional, financial, and psychological benefits and helps them thrive.”

Said Ed Howard, senior counsel for the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law: “Everyone who places the interests of children first, and realizes that judges shouldn't be forced to rule in ways that hurt children, should cheer this Assembly vote.”

Although situations in which a child has more than two parents are unusual, the potential harm to children when courts are prohibited from recognizing the reality of the child’s family structure is great. Several other states already recognize that a child may have more than two parents, including Delaware, Maine, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and the District of Columbia.

The law will not change who can be a parent, and applies only when there are more than two people who meet the definition of a parent under existing California law. It will not give any new rights to people who are not parents—like stepparents, grandparents, babysitters, and other caretakers.

The bill, which was approved by the Senate earlier this year, will now return to its house of origin for a vote to concur in amendments made in the Assembly before moving to the Governor’s desk.

NBC's 'The New Normal' Attacks 'Christian Values Claims AFA Subset Group

Courtesy of NBC

TUPELO, MS -- AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer and Monica Cole of One Million Moms launched an attack today on the yet-to-air NBC comedy show, The New Normal. The show's creator Ryan Murphy, has come under attack from the right wing christian group before when last year, Fischer and Cole teamed up and attacked his wildly successful show on Fox, Glee.

The New Normal, which involves a gay couple who hire a surrogate mother, was labeled perverse by Fischer & Cole as Fischer proclaimed that the show shows “how subversive Hollywood is when it comes to undermining our values” and Cole said the show “continues to attack Christian values, conservative values.

WATCH:

This recent criticism comes less than a week after a Mormon-owned NBC television affiliate in Utah announced it was yanking "The New Normal" from its fall lineup for its "explicit" and "offensive" content.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, KSL TV, which is owned by the Latter-day Saints church, refused to air the show about two gay men who go through the highs and lows of parenting their new baby.

"The dialogue might be excessively rude and crude," CEO of KSL's parent company, Bonneville International, Jeff Simpson told the paper. "The scenes may be too explicit or the characterizations might seem offensive."

This marks the second consecutive year KSL is refusing to carry an NBC show the Tribune reported. A year ago, then-KSL CEO Mark Willes said the station wouldn’t air "The Playboy Club" because the KSL brand "is completely inconsistent with the Playboy brand."

Simpson echoed those words when he said, "For our brand, this program feels inappropriate on several dimensions, especially during family viewing time."

"The New Normal" is set to debut on NBC on Tuesday, Sept. 11, at 8:30 p.m.