FOUR-PARENT FAMILIES: From the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Pioneer Press

Each Tuesday, the family headed by Deb Leavitt, Anne Phibbs, Gerry Tyrell and Kevin Reuther eats together. Gathering this week are, from left, Dylan, 12; Tyrell; Reuther; Leavitt; Ada, 8; and Phibbs.

Anne Phibbs is aware that some churchgoing folks might have moral qualms about her domestic arrangements.

She doesn't like it, but she and her four-parent, two-child family can live with that.

What Phibbs can't abide is extending that private moral judgment to the public realm and denying her the chance to marry her lifelong partner, Deb Leavitt. Phibbs "co-parents" two children with Leavitt, as well as the children's father and his gay partner. ...

Phibbs, 41, and Leavitt, 43, have been together for 20 years. Leavitt gave birth, via artificial insemination, to Dylan and Ada. The children's father is gay. "Initially, what we wanted was to have the father involved,'' Phibbs said. "Then it became two fathers.'' The father and his partner are "co-parents'' with Leavitt and Phibbs. (Phibbs prefers not to say which of the men is the biological father.)

The children spend five nights a week with the women and two nights with the men, whose home is eight blocks away. "We are all parents,'' Phibbs said. "We don't say 'the father.' We say, 'We're both mothers and both fathers.' '' Laundry and lunches and homework and early teenage angst fall on four, rather than two.

Phibbs and Tyrrell said they would marry their respective partners if they could. Leavitt recently lost her job with Hennepin County and soon will lose her health insurance. Phibbs works at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul and tried to put Leavitt on her state plan. That looked promising until the Legislature scuttled former Gov. Jesse Ventura's attempt to extend benefits to employees' same-sex partners.

Phibbs and Leavitt have registered as domestic partners in Minneapolis--the only Minnesota city offering such a service--but believe that is mainly symbolic. Phibbs has legally adopted the children. The women own their house and car together. Like many long-term, same-sex couples, they can write wills, power-of-attorney agreements and medical directives that mimic the protections of a marriage contract.

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