Qld: Same sex parenting briefing paper

Just FYI.
If I knew how to do a fold, I would (any tips?) It's quite long.

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Action Reform Change Queensland (ARCQ) is a community-based organisation in Queensland which advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality through campaigns for legal and social change, and public education. ARCQ was formed in 2003 with participation from individuals and established community groups.
Key Points
· A significant number of same-sex couples either currently have children or aspire to have children.
· Queensland law does not currently recognise the de facto partner of a lesbian mother as a parent when accessing Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), in contrast to the way it treats the male de facto partner or husband of a heterosexual mother.
· Extending legal recognition to co-parents in same-sex relationships would ensure they can both perform day to day parenting tasks and fulfill their parenting responsibilities.
· Protecting the best interests of a child is one of the most important principles of international law.
· Research demonstrates that children raised by same-sex couples experience the same developmental outcomes as those raised by heterosexual couples.
· HREOC have found that legal discrimination against people in same-sex relationships and their children amounts to the breach of a number of international human rights obligations.
· Access to a regulated system for altruistic surrogacy should be available in Queensland and should not discriminate between couples on the basis of relationship status or sexuality.
· Adoption, parentage presumption and access to altruistic surrogacy should be available to same-sex couples with the non-biological parent recognised as the child’s parent – reform the Adoption Act 1964, Status of Children Act 1978 and the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 2003.
· A 2008 Galaxy Poll demonstrates that the majority of Queenslanders support law reform.

SAME SEX PARENTING RECOGNITION IS IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF CHILDREN
Protecting the best interests of a child is one of the most important principles of international law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in particular.
A significant proportion of same-sex couples also parent children. 4,386 children live in same-sex families in Australia (ABS, 2007). This figure does not include children of non-resident or single lesbian or gay parents, or adult children living out of home. It is estimated that 20% of lesbians and up to 10% of gay men are parents. One study has found that 42% of young lesbians intend to have children in the future.
Some children are born to one member of a same-sex couple during an earlier opposite sex relationship. Many children are born to lesbian couples using donor sperm and Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). Some children are being born into and raised by gay male couples with the help of a female friend or through a surrogacy arrangement. A few children may be adopted by one or both members of a same-sex couple.
Under family law, a child’s two legal parents are generally the woman who bears the child (the birth mother) and the male partner of the birth mother, if there is one (the birth father). These are generally the two people who are recorded on the child’s birth certificate as parents, which will be evidence of the legal relationship throughout the child’s life. In Queensland, this includes the male partner of the birth mother where the pregnancy arises from ART, in that it presumes that the male partner produced the sperm even when there is another donor. Alternatively, if a child has been adopted, the child’s legal parents will include the parents who adopt him or her. Adoptive parents can also be added to a birth certificate.
A child born to a lesbian couple will generally have a birth mother and a lesbian co-mother. The birth mother will be a legal parent under the current family law system. A child born to a gay couple will often have a birth father and a gay co-father, as well as a birth mother. Alternatively, a child may have two gay co-fathers as well as a birth mother. If there is a birth father, he will be a legal parent.
The lesbian co-mother or gay co-father(s) can apply to the Family Court of Australia for a parenting order, as ‘other people significant to the care, welfare and development’ of the child. But the lesbian co-mother and gay co-father(s) will not be treated in the same way as a birth parent.
Extending legal recognition to co-parents in same-sex relationships would ensure they can both perform day to day tasks without question, such as writing permission notes for school, collecting children from childcare or sport, making decisions in relation to their children’s education, taking a child to the doctor and making decisions in a medical emergency. Addressing the legal status of the parents also gives certainty to the children in relation to inheritance and other legal processes that may relate to the death or illness of a parent. Children would further benefit from the legitimising of their family structures afforded by legal recognition
The failure to recognise gay or lesbian co-parents of a child may breach a child’s right to identity under the articles 7 and 8 of the CRC. It may also breach Australia’s obligation to support and promote the common responsibilities of both parents in raising a child (article 18).
In Western Australia (WA), Northern Territory (NT), the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and New South Wales (NSW), the birth mother and lesbian co-mother of an ART child are presumed to be the legal parents of the child, if they are in a genuine relationship when the child is born. They are both noted on the child’s birth certificate, to the exclusion of the sperm donor. Tasmania allows children in the care of a same-sex couple to be adopted by the non-biological partner. The Commonwealth and Victorian Governments have recently announced that they will make changes to recognise parents. Queensland and South Australia generally do not recognise children parented by same-sex couples. However, section 18B of the Status of Children Act 1978 provides that Queensland recognises lesbian co-mothers as parents if they are registered in WA, NT, ACT and soon in Victoria.
In the case of a lesbian co-mother of an ART child there is unlikely to be a competing interest. In the case of other lesbian or gay co-parents, there may be consensual agreements between the various people seeking to raise a child. The HREOC Inquiry supported amendments to legislation which open up additional options for a lesbian or gay couple to attain legal status and therefore better protect the best interests of their child.
A considerable amount of sociological and psychological research has been conducted over the past 25 years to examine the effect a parent’s sexual orientation has on the welfare and development of their children. The findings comparing lesbian and gay parents to heterosexual parents refute common stereotypes and concerns about lesbian and gay parenting.
It has been clearly demonstrated that the sexuality of a child’s parents has no connection to the child’s moral and cognitive development, well-being or happiness. When comparing children of heterosexual parents to children of lesbians and gay men no significant differences have been found in the social adjustment, social acceptance, or sociability of the children. Nor has any difference in the children’s peer relations such as quality of friendships or popularity been illustrated. In addition, no discernible differences have been found in the children of heterosexual or homosexual parents regarding a child’s gender role identification or sexual orientation.
The most important factor in a child’s upbringing has been identified as the care and love put into a child’s life. Lesbians and gay men display matched capability at loving and caring for their children as their heterosexual counterparts. For further information see the GLRL report, Meet the Parents.

FORMAL RECOGNITION OF SAME SEX COUPLES WILL PROVIDE FOR DOCUMENTATION, VALIDATION AND RESPECT
The 2006 Census reported 24,681 same-sex couples in Australia (ABS, 2007). The Australian Bureau of Statistics acknowledges this figure is an underestimate as some couples may be reluctant to publicly disclose their same-sex relationship status, or may be unaware that same-sex couples will be counted in the Census.
Queensland has recognised same sex de facto couples since reform in 2002. The Discrimination Law Amendment Act 2002 (Qld) amended a wide range of existing Acts to introduce the term ‘de facto partner’ as a category of ‘spouse’ or to replace the term ‘de facto spouse’ with ‘de facto partner’. The new definition of ‘de facto partner’ is as follows: either 1 of 2 persons who are living together as a couple on a genuine domestic basis but who are not married to each other or related by family.Thus, a same sex partner in Queensland now has access to entitlements available to a ‘spouse’.
The Tasmanian reforms in 2003 introduced a relationship register alongside the introduction of the term ‘significant relationship’. A couple (same-sex or opposite-sex) who registers their relationship as a significant relationship will have prima facie proof of the existence of that relationship. Tasmanian law does not require the couple to live together in order to prove a significant relationship. A registered couple has prima facie proof of the existence of their relationship, so cohabitation need not be a fundamental element of proving a ‘significant relationship’. Registration of a relationship does not confer legal rights in itself but it may assist in demonstrating the existence of a de facto relationship. Civil union laws are now in place in the ACT as from May 2008. The new laws allow same sex couples to enter a legally recognised civil partnership. They also allow a civil ceremony to be conducted by the Registrar General.
Both NSW and Victorian consultations with the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community highlight a significant level of desire for symbolic and ceremonial forms of relationship recognition. 80% of Victorian respondents and 74% of NSW respondents thought marriage should be available to Australian same-sex couples. In NSW, 70% of participants also believed civil unions should be available.
There are various models of civil unions in other countries.
Sometimes it is difficult for a couple to provide the evidence necessary to prove the criteria for a genuine domestic relationship. This may be particularly difficult for a same-sex couple who has not yet declared their sexuality to friends, family or workplaces for fear of the public reaction. Further, some same-sex couples have told stories of decision-makers who are resistant to the possibility that a same-sex couple can be a genuine couple.
Several people told the HREOC Inquiry that a formal ‘piece of paper’ could assist same-sex couples in proving the genuineness of their relationship and in asserting the rights that flow from such a relationship. The NSW Law Reform Commission believes that the advantages of registration schemes include greater certainty and recognition. They comment:
Registration has the benefit of certainty. That certainty removes the need for legislative preconditions such as requiring cohabitation. The parties to a relationship can be readily identified, and have demonstrated that they know about, and agree to be bound by, the legislation and its provisions. It would give people who do not wish or are legally unable to marry, such as gay and lesbian couples, the opportunity to have their relationship registered and formally recognised by the State. It also provides a system of recognition for people who do not wish to live together, but want to acknowledge their relationship of mutual support.
The ALP National Conference passed a motion on 27th April 2007 stating in part:
Labor will take action to ensure the development of nationally consistent, state-based relationship recognition legislation that will include the opportunity for couples who have a mutual commitment to a shared life to have those relationships registered and certified...based on the scheme that has existed in Tasmania since 2004.
These sentiments were echoed by Labor during the 2007 federal election. The then Shadow Attorney General, Joe Ludwig, gave repeated commitments to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities around Australia that a Rudd Labor Government would act on the Inquiry’s recommendations as a first term priority and negotiate nationally consistent, state-based relationship recognition legislation.
The Victorian Government is at present considering its options with regard to which model of registry arrangement it will adopt. It is understood that there is serious consideration of duplicating arrangements that were adopted in Tasmania.
It is important to acknowledge that a relationship recognition scheme will not satisfy all lesbian and gay couples, many of whom aspire to full equality through marriage or desire the option to choose marriage as do heterosexual couples. However, a relationship recognition scheme with a ceremonial element would be a significant step towards addressing these aspirations and removing the sense of social exclusion that lesbian and gay couples currently experience.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community commissioned a Galaxy Poll in 2008 to explore the views of Queenslanders on a number of key issues. In summary, the poll found that:
· 60% of Queenslanders think that same sex couples should be able to have a civil union.
· 67% of Queenslanders think that children with same sex parents should have both parents recognised by law.
· 96% of Queenslanders think that more should be done to prevent homophobic bullying against gay and lesbian students in Queensland schools.


June 2009

I don't seem to have many photos of Pearl and Louis together - often my attempts come out like this - one child in each corner of the frame, heading in different directions.






However Pearl has recently invented a game that necessitates much close contact. It involves Pearl chasing Louis...







Wrestling him to the ground...

Leaping on him...

And then them both falling about laughing.

Deep? You've come to the right place

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

The babies have decided that this is their going to bed lullaby. If I try and sing anything else, say, Rockabye baby, or Hush little baby, don't you cry, or my own favourite, Bring me little water, Sylvie, they pop their heads up and insist, "Woe, Woe, Woe" in ever more urgent tones. So Woe, woe, woe it is, over and over and over again, until they both fall asleep.

Usually this takes about twenty minutes, but tonight, due to an unfortunate late afternoon car trip resulting in an unfortunate late afternoon nap, it took an hour. Seven til eight pm I spent singing Row row row your boat, over and over. It became like a meditation, like following my breath...innnnnn....and ooooouuutttt.... which I did for five days once, on a retreat. And I realised what incredible layers there are to that simple song, how it encapsulates wisdom of ages in its innocuous lines. A guide to life, all there in a child's rhyme!

Consider...

Row, row, row: You have to be active, not passive. You'll need to do a bit of rowing in life - don't just sit there!
your boat: You can only row your boat, not anyone else's. Keep your mind on your own business.
Gently: There's no need to be frantic about it. Go placidly among the strife and turmoil of this world, etc
down: Don't bother fighting against the current. Take your natural path in life.
the stream: It's okay. It's a stream, not a raging torrent. You are safe.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily: Maintain optimism. It is what it is. It's a stream. You're rowing in it. Be happy about it.
Life is but a dream: This is the truly deep bit. Don't take it all too seriously, it's just a dream. Which poses the question, what do we wake up to, when we wake up from this dream that is life?

Is this gut feeling intuition...or neurosis?

Because, you know, people do say to mothers all the time, trust your instincts. And I really can't tell if this yukky feeling in my stomach is anxiety, or some sort of warning. I know I'm over-protective. But a certain level of hypervigilance is realistic, surely?

I've been trying to convince myself for some time that my concerns about my mother looking after the children are just based on my anxieties. She spends a day a week with us, and is an enormous help, and adores them, and when I'm supervising her I'm absolutely delighted to have her around and involved in the twins' lives. But she's so absent-minded.

She cannot remember to put her hot cup of tea away from the edges of the tables - I'm always moving them out of reach. Last week she kicked a full cup over, narrowly missing Louis, and we have a friend's child who has had skin grafts from a hot cup of tea incident, so I'm abnormally careful.

She cannot remember to close the wire door when she goes out the back to helpfully hang out the washing - the babies are pretty good with stairs now, but I'd prefer they didn't do it unsupervised. It's a wooden staircase that gets slippery when it rains, with stupid ornamental stones (rental house) at the bottom. And it's only got a handrail, not a proper banister, so it's possible to slip sideways and fall out the side of the stairs, if you are small.

Wednesday evening when I got home, she'd put Pearl in her car seat but omitted to do up the belts.

Last week she was helpfully sorting some cardboard into the recycling for me, and Pearl walked past her and out the front gate. Louis and I were picking lemons at the other end of the garden, so I just said calmly, "I'd rather you went after Pearl than did that," and she did.

I've been telling myself that when I'm around she probably relinquishes a lot of responsibility, and that she'd be more focussed when she has them by herself, but I've been more hesitant to leave them with her since they've both been toddling.

Friday she looked after the babies for us at her house for a couple of hours. L went to pick them up and the side gate was open. She lives on a busy road so this really feels like the final straw. The kids were inside at the time, but the back door was open (it's one of those kitchen flows out to the patio kind of arrangements, so the kids just wander in and out). L pointed out the gate (and I had asked her to mention it to Mum when L dropped the kids off) but Mum said, "Oh, it's alright, I'm watching them." Which is all very well but she was in her pyjamas when L had dropped the kids off, so presumably at some point she'd had a shower, and possibly gone to the toilet, so there would have been moments of inattention. I mean, why not just shut the gate?

Are these normal oversights? What do other people expect of their mothers? It feels like a really big deal to say my mother is not capable of looking after her grandchildren.

I used to be standing out the front with a placard. Think of the rainforests!

It's been raining for days.

Rainy days are hard work. Hopefully in another year they'll be old enough to be diverted by things like fingerpainting, and cooking, and cut-and-pasting, and building forts out of two coffee tables, a sofa and a few blankets. And videos! Lots and lots of loooooong videos.

We've been to the museum. We've been to all the libraries. We've been to the art gallery. We've been to the highly expensive hell that is an indoor playland.

Today, we spent the afternoon in the undercover play area at M*cD0n*lds.

Actually it wasn't so bad. The play equipment is incredibly safe (covering every liability possibility) and the afternoon only cost $4 for a coffee and a McSc0ne. Scary. First we discovered C0ffee C1ub (lots of high chairs, lots of space for prams, lots of other parents there so no disapproving looks from exasperated, sophisticated cafe goers) and now M*cca's.

Is there any further to fall?

Onward to the workforce

I've just scored myself a job - well, it resembles a job in all ways except for the bit where you get paid. I'm going to go in one day a week and do some 'interning' as we call unpaid labour, with a small film production company. Mostly corporate films, some docos, some ads.

L and I have been discussion my job situation. Come July 1, I'm going to be losing the single parents' pension, as the federal government has decided that two people of the same sex do actually have the potential to constitute a couple. Nice, on the whole, and I'm grateful that I had 18 months' maternity leave paid by Centrel1nk. As I've explained in other posts, we're still not recognised in Qld, which means that although L is my partner, she is not seen as the babies' parent. So the fight goes on.

But I digress. I want to talk about going back to work.

At the moment, L has the babies on Thursdays. Financially, it would be nice if L worked four days and I worked three, but we don't really want to put the kids in childcare. I think Louis would be okay, but Pearl is still very clingy. Overall I don't think a bit of childcare is bad, and I've read up on the research (full time long day care from 3 months old = bad; anything else = neutral and the home environment is much more important in determining outcomes. No evidence to support oft-quoted theory that childcare is necessary or particularly beneficial for socialisation and academic achievement UNLESS the home environment is dysfunctional, then childcare can be a protective and positive factor). We had been envisaging leaving Louis and Pearl with Grandma for a day or two but honestly, I don't think she's up to it. Or I'm not up to it. I worry too much. Mum adores the children but she's a bit...absent minded. I think it's very hard to be on top of two toddlers; maybe it's not until you have twins yourself that you become able to do the constant division of attention. Like, if Pearl injures herself, Mum will drop everything and concentrate on Pearl's distress; all well and good except that Louis meanwhile is wandering off in another direction. You can never, ever give undivided attention to one child, when you have two toddlers, and I think that's a learnt skill. Mum gets insulted when I imply that her experience of bringing up three children is insufficient in some way. I think kids of different ages are hard in a different way; it's like comparing, I don't know, care of cats to care of dogs.

Anyway, the point is, that L and I are considering childcare, maybe one or two days a week. And I'm considering whether I want to work; that is, I think about working on the days when I'm not planning to home-school them. And I have lots of mad ideas for home based businesses that are incredibly interesting but not at all lucrative; part of the problem is that I don't think we should be consuming any more than we are, so how can I convince people to buy more stuff? And we're figuring out how we are going to get along on one income, and I've subscribed to a (free) email list that sends me handy hints on how to cook for a family of five for a week using only one potato and some generic label soy sauce (This week's tip: save all your laundry washing up and do it on one day each week - then you only do full loads so you save on water and electricity and washing powder, "I've saved $1200 over twelve months doing this!" writes Lynette from Upper Kumbukta West).

Sorry! How did I get to be here discussing laundry schedules?

We're here, we're queer, and...we ARE going shopping

Yesterday we went along to Qld Pride. The march was a lot of fun, and going in on the train was a hoot - the whole carriage was filled with a range of queer folk: we staid suburban lesbians with our twin pram, a gorgeous gaggle of fifteen year old boys with Duran Duran hairdos and self-consciously camp mannerisms, a brace of old leathermen and some young dykes with trim short hair and low slung jeans not held up by their low slung belts. We met up with a bunch of friends and formed a pram posse, somehow ending up marching between some spunky FTM trannies (I loved their banner: "LGBT - the T is not silent"!) and the aforementioned leathermen.

The Brisbane rally is absolutely nothing like the Mardi Gras parade. It's a political rally, not a celebratory parade. We marched through the streets; those so inclined were chanting, I'm not sure what; some were blowing whistles. Lots of cars gave us cheery honks. In depressingly true Queensland style, not a single word of it was mentioned in the print media, although L gave a radio interview to a local commercial radio station and I was interviewed for a documentary some enthusiastic young things were making about workplace discrimination (my quote: have never experienced it, but am concerned that L won't be able to get parental leave if she needs it, as she's not legally recognised as a parent).

After the feelgood high of the rally, the fair day was something of fizzer for me. It was, umm, one dimensional - a one dimensional representation of the queer community. And what was represented was the partying, market-to-the-high-disposable-income, heavy drinking scene. A bunch of stalls handing out pamphlets, multiple tents selling alcohol, and a stage pumping out music that was too loud. I think I would like something more participatory: a couple of alternative stages; a healing or health space where you could get massages, and fruit juice, and tarot readings; maybe another space where you could do demonstration things, like bootscooting or muu thai or whatever is the latest queer fad; and a KID SPACE.

Like everyone else in the Brisbane queer community, instead of just criticising, I should get involved and do something about it, or else shut up.

It was nice to bump into people. That's really the point of those events, isn't it? Gathering everyone? It's just, you know, it seems a bit sad that we're all gathered there and all we can do is drink and listen to loud music. There's more to being glbT (not silent) than drinking and partying and s*x, but it's all I see reflected in the gayboy media, and L0TL's (Aus lesbian mag) not much better.