SAME-SEX CUSTODY CASE IS DECIDED: From the Portland Press-Herald

[You can read the court decision here.]

A gay woman from Freeport is a "de facto parent" of her former partner's biological child and has full parental rights and responsibilities, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court decided Tuesday.

The court ruled that "adults who have fully and completely undertaken a permanent, unequivocal, committed and responsible parental role in the child's life" can in some cases be recognized as legal parents, regardless of their sexual orientation or family relationship.

Their role in raising children can last, the court said, even if the adults' relationship ends. ...

[The decision] puts Maine in a small group of states whose courts recognize a bond between an adult and a child that does not result from a biological relationship or legal adoption. ...

According to the decision, the two women started living together in 1992 and agreed that C.E.W.'s partner would conceive a child through artificial insemination.

The women took each other's last names and signed a joint parenting agreement. The boy was born in 1994.

In February 1999, the couple separated when the biological mother left their home. They signed a second parenting agreement sharing the parental costs and decisions, and agreed that the boy's primary residence and visitations would be determined by the courts.

In November 2000, the biological mother filed a complaint in Superior Court arguing that C.E.W. should not be considered a parent. ...

A group of professional organizations and child welfare providers, including the Maine Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers and the Maine Children's Alliance, filed a brief in support of C.E.W.

They said research showed that children in families with a non-biological parent form the same kind of bonds they have with a birth parent.

"Families with same-sex parents function virtually identically to families with opposite sex parents," the brief said. "Children of same-sex parents fare as well as children of heterosexual parents in mental health, psychological and social adjustment, and all other measures of adjustment and well-being."

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