A Little Girl Called 'M.C.'

7/30/2019 A Little Girl Called 'M.C.'

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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078

www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: [email protected] 760/295-92782007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.

A Little Girl Called M.C.

The Collateral Damage from Same-Sex

Marriage

By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.

This article was first published September25, 2012, at Break Point.org.

The policy proposal known as same-sex

marriage is actually a proposal to redefine

marriage. Instead of being a gender-basedinstitution oriented toward the procreation of

children and the good of the spouses, what is

called same-sex marriage makes marriage

into a genderless institution, oriented towardthe good of adults only. Any possible

negative consequences for children,

according to this way of thinking, are not

worth considering. We, and the childrenthemselves, must simply accept any negative

outcomes as collateral damage on the road

to the nirvana of marriage equality.

A little girl known only to the public asM.C. is a public victim of the redefinition of

marriage in California. If lukewarm

Christians are tempted to sit out the

marriage battle because they find it toocontentious and emotional, they might give

a moments thought to the situation of M.C.

Little M.C. was born in March 2009, to a

woman named Melissa. Melissa hadcontracted a marriage with a woman named

Irene in October 2008, during the window of

time that same-sex marriage was permitted

in California. Melissa had become pregnant

with M.C. by a man named Jesus in thesummer of 2008, prior to the state-

sanctioned marriage ceremony.

Melissa and M.C. lived with Irene for 3 or 4

weeks after M.C.s birth. When Melissa

moved out, Irene attempted to obtain jointlegal and physical custody of M.C. Melissa

got in touch with Jesus, the childs father,

who had since moved to Oklahoma. He senther money, and stayed in contact with her.

Melissa was not happy with Irenescontinuing attempts to be involved with her

and M.C. In September 2009, Melissas new

boyfriend, Jos, attacked Irene, stabbing herso severely that she had to be hospitalized.

Melissa was imprisoned, charged with

accessory to attempted murder.

M.C. was taken into foster care. At that

point, the urgent question arose: Who areher parents? Who can and should care for

M.C. while her mother, Melissa, serves her

prison sentence?

The courts found that M.C., for all intents

and purposes, had three parents, recognizedunder different parts of the law. Melissa

counted as a mother because she gave birth

to the child. Irene was married to Melissawhen Melissa gave birth to M.C. The courts

applied a concept called the presumption of

paternity. Under that concept, a womans

husband is presumed to be the father of anychildren she gives birth to during the life of

their union. Thanks to the redefinition of

marriage to be a genderless institution, the


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family courts felt obligated to do a gender-

neutral reading of this statute, transformingthe presumption of paternity into a

gender-neutral presumption of parentage.

Therefore, Irene counted as a presumed

mother, or maybe I should say a presumed

generic parent. However, she was not inany position to take care of M.C. in the short

term, due to her injuries from being stabbed.

She also had a history of domestic violence.

What about Jesus? No court ever denied that

Jesus was a father. Nor did any court findhim an unfit father in any way. So with

Melissa in prison and Irene in the hospital,

why couldnt the court simply give M.C. toJesus, her biological father?

The courts declined to place M.C. with Jesusbecause this would jeopardize what they saw

as the childs interest in reunification with

Irene. Bear in mind that Irene was not thebiological mother. She was not an adoptive

mother. She had lived with Melissa and

M.C. for about three or four weeks after thechild was born. Irene, in short, was not a

mother to M.C. in any meaningful sense.

Irene was a presumed mother for one

reason and one reason only: same-sex

marriage. That marriage is what promptedthe court to call Irene a presumed mother,

under a gender-neutral reading of the

Uniform Parentage Act.

One of the attorneys for M.C. pointed out

the absurdity of a gender-neutral reading ofthis statute, substituting for the husband,

who is almost always the childs other

biological parent, a female partner whocould never possibly have been the childs

other biological parent.

But no matter: The court was attempting to

do its job, impossible though that may have

been in the circumstances. Irene was foundto be a presumed mother. And since

California law does not actually permit a

child to have three parents, the courtscouldnt quite bring themselves to place the

child with Jesus. All he had going for him

was the fact that he was the biologicalfather, not the father created by the legal

institution of marriage.

So, naturally, the next step in the long march

toward creating a gender-neutral society is

to declare that children in California canhave three parents. State Senator Mark Leno

and head of the LGBT caucus in Sacramento

introduced a bill allowing family courts to

recognize three parents, if, in their opinion,this would be in the best interests of the

child. The three-parent bill passed both

houses of the California Assembly and iswaiting for Governor Browns signature. If

he does nothing by September 30, 2012, it

will automatically be passed into law.[Editor's note: Governor Brown vetoed it!

Crisis averted, at least this time around!]

The solution to this tragic case is not to

amend the law to allow three parents. The

solution is to amend the law to remove thepossibility of a person unrelated to the child

either by biology or adoption, being counted

as a parent. The solution is to stop requiring


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a gender-neutral reading of a statute that is

based on the biological, gendered facts ofhuman reproduction.

In other words, the way to have kept M.C.out of foster care was to abandon the idea of

marriage equality. In fact, the voters of

California did exactly that, when theypassed Proposition 8, affirming that the term

marriage can only be used to refer to the

union of a man and a woman. It is marriageequality that created the tragic

circumstances of this case.

Marriage is a complex social institution. Not

everyone agrees that the essential public

purpose of marriage is to attach mothers andfathers to each other and to their children.

But I do not see how anyone can deny that

attaching children to their mothers andfathers is one of the significant social

purposes of marriage. And I do not see how

any reasonable person can deny that same-

sex couples and opposite-sex couples aredifferent with regard to this purpose. It is

simply not possible to treat same-sex

couples and opposite-sex couples identicallyin all the areas of law that marriage touches.

M.C.s situation had an obvious and muchless radical solution than a triple-parenting

bill: Give the child to her father. She had

been in foster care from September 2009until at least May 2011, when the last appeal

was heard. All that time in foster care was

totally unnecessary. She was collateraldamage from the ill-conceived idea of

genderless marriage. Her fate since then is

not part of the public record.

This new view of the family gives judges

way too much power, and children far toolittle consideration. This is the world we are

leaving to our children and grandchildren.

Christians inside and outside of Californiahave a responsibility to make their voices

heard.

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is an

economist and the Founder and President of

theRuth Institute, a nonprofit educationalorganization devoted to bringing hope and

encouragement for lifelong married love.

She is also the author ofLove and

Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise aVillage andSmart Sex: Finding Life-Long

Love in a Hook-Up World.
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A Little Girl Called 'M.C.'

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