Same-sex couples encounter parenting difficulties that other family units never even imagine. One issue, I brought up in a comment on a recent guestblog, is family health insurance. When a family adopts a child, the parents typically add the child to their health insurance just as if they had given birth to the child. Except, if the adoptive parents are the same sex that is, because in many states, both parents cannot have their names on the birth certificate. Recently, a California couple took the birth certificate battle to Federal court. At stake, among other things, was their adoptive son’s right to have the health benefits provided by the employer of his father that works outside the home. The reason for the denial, only one father could be listed on the child’s New Orleans birth certificate, and that happened to be his stay at home father. Therefore, since the employed father was not the boy’s legal parent, he had to fight his employer to insure the boy.

This California couple did not give up but took the battle to federal court to have both of their names placed on their son’s New Orleans birth certificate. The boy was born in New Orleans and the California couple adopted him after being chosen by his birth mother in 2005. The U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey determined that no trial was needed because the facts were so clear.

The judge ordered that the Louisiana Office of Vital Records to reissue a birth certificate with both fathers’ names, Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith of San Diego. Although New Orleans can appeal the decision.

One father indicated that he had been adopted as a child himself and knew what if felt like to want to belong. He felt that having both dads’ names on their son’s birth certificate would help give him a sense of identity and dignity. The dads mentioned another incident that our own blogger Lisa has shared with readers as well. Their son is a different race than they are, and once while traveling they were stopped and questioned by airline staff about whether they were kidnapping the boy. If he had been traveling with only the dad who is not on the birth certificate, things could get sticky.

New Orleans indicated that their reasons were more practical instead of discriminatory. Apparently, Louisiana law does not let two unmarried people adopt a child together. Apparently, New York has decided to allow married same-sex couples to list both names on their children’s birth certificates.

Photo Credit: Flickr by basykes  

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