Birth Certificates Take Center Stage in Latest Gay-Marriage Battle
Eight months after Florida’s gay marriage ban ended, the state is not allowing hospitals to list both same-sex parents on their babies’ birth certificates, according to a federal lawsuit recently filed by three gay couples.
Last week the first same-sex couple to be married in Florida, Cathy Pareto and Karla Arguello, discovered the hospital would only include the birth mother’s name on the birth certificate for their twins.
They have sued, saying the Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics violates the U.S. Constitution by issuing “a certificate that falsely indicates that the child has only one parent.”
Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage ended on Jan. 6 after it was struck down by a judge. Then, in June the U.S. Supreme Court issued a nationwide ruling that state marriage bans are unconstitutional.
The Florida Department of Health, which handles birth certificates, responded on Thursday with a legal motion seeking clarification from a judge on whether the Supreme Court’s ruling “may be read to require issuance of birth certificates to married same-sex parents.”
It said current Florida law regarding birth certificates is “gender specific,” referring to a mother and her husband. It added the Supreme Court ruling referred only “to the issue of same-sex marriage, not vital statistics records.”
Since the ruling, legal fights over gay marriage have erupted across the country. On Thursday, the Colorado Court of Appeals said a baker cannot cite religious beliefs in refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
The Florida plaintiffs made repeated requests to Florida officials “but enough is enough,” added Minter, saying they would have preferred not to go to court.
© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.
