In a sad, sad moment for the United States, for sanity, and for democratic government, the United States Supreme Court in Obergefell v Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015), decided that the precedents of all of known human history were meaningless, and homosexual couples had the same marriage rights as normal ones. Well, s(tuff) rolls downhill, and from the monumental stupidity of Obergefell comes even more:
A lesbian mom raised her son for two years. An Oklahoma judge erased that in 15 minutes.
Kris Williams was removed from her son’s birth certificate in a case experts say could test the boundaries of marriage equality.
by Sara Luterman and Kate Sosin | Friday, May 20, 2022 | 6:00 AM EDT
For the first two years of her son’s life, Kris Williams read him the book “Love You Forever” before bedtime most nights. She took him to the park every Saturday.
In the middle of the pandemic, Williams cut out the cardboard babies on the front of diaper boxes and set them around the house — imaginary friends for W. when he couldn’t safely socialize. (The 19th has used only his first initial to protect his privacy.)
Two years after their son’s birth, Williams and her wife, Rebekah Wilson, had started to split.
The split was nasty, Williams said, but she wasn’t prepped for the news she would receive at the couple’s divorce hearing in Oklahoma City last January.
Williams and Wilson are legally married and decided to have W. together, according to Williams, with Wilson carrying the baby. But within 15 minutes of the hearing starting, Oklahoma County District Court Judge Lynne McGuire declared that because Williams had not adopted her son, she was not his legal parent. Williams was ordered struck from W.’s birth certificate. In her place would go the couple’s sperm donor, who was now petitioning for custody.
“My body instantly started shaking,” Williams said. “I mean pure terror, as a queer person, to be erased.”
Williams has filed a motion to reconsider her case that is set to be heard on June 1. If the case makes its way to the appellate court, the ACLU of Oklahoma plans to step in, said ACLU attorney Hanna Roberts. Wilson and her lawyer declined multiple requests for an interview.
Simply put, Miss Wilson and Miss Williams decided to have a child together, but because that is biologically impossible, they had to find a male willing to donate his semen to impregnate Miss Wilson. Miss Williams found herself in the position of being not a biological parent, but a step-parent. In the case of two males, this would involve even more, as only one could donate semen, while the child would have to be conceived and gestated in the uterus of a woman.
This is the scenario that every homosexual couple which wishes to have a child together faces, because two males or two females cannot have a biological child together. It does not matter what human law can concoct, it cannot override biology.
“The concern is if Kris loses, that’s going to set some pretty bad precedent in the state of Oklahoma, and possibly beyond,” (ACLU attorney Hanna) Roberts said. “I think that this is just the first time that there has been such an adverse ruling that is so contrary to equal protection. It’s gotten the attention because same sex-couples get divorced all the time.”
“(S)ame sex couples get divorced all the time,” huh? Gee, what a surprise that is! That’s kind of like normal couples, who divorce roughly half the time. And guess what: heterosexual couples with children have lots of the same problems, though because their children are conceived the normal way, biological fathers and mothers (supposedly) have the same rights.
According to Williams, the couple found Harlan Vaughn on a paternity website together, and the three agreed that he would be involved at a distance. W. was born August 8, 2019. They named him after Williams’ uncle, she said.
When the couple separated, Williams said that Vaughn moved to Oklahoma City, where he and Wilson — W. in tow — moved in together. Williams said the last time she saw W. was in November after she and Wilson failed to come to an agreement about how to split up the holidays. Vaughn did not respond to requests for comment.
By involving Mr Vaughn in their decision to have a child together, Misses Williams and Wilson added a third person to the equation, and Mr Vaughn is the biological father of the son Misses Williams and Wilson wanted. Mr Vaughn petitioning for custody is, in practical terms, indistinguishable from a biological father suing for custody of his child versus the child’s biological mother and a step-father. If the step-father does not adopt the child, something to which the biological father would have to agree, the biological father has greater rights than the step-father, even if the step-father has married the biological mother. Judge McGuire ruled that Miss Williams was not entitled to parental rights because she had not legally adopted W.
This is, of course, a matter of Oklahoma law, and I am neither an attorney nor an expert in the laws of the Sooner State. But normally the biological father has rights. He could also have responsibilities; if Misses Williams and Wilson separated, and Miss Williams did not want to pay child support, Miss Wilson could just as easily have sued Mr Vaughn for child support for his biological son! Such has happened in neighboring Kansas, though another Kansas case turned out differently. In the case at hand, Mr Vaughn and Miss Wilson moved in together, which adds to the legal issues, and which states that Mr Vaughn is ready in every respect to be W’s father.
If Mr Vaughn and Miss Wilson later split up — and yes, I have assumed here that they moved in together for romantic reasons rather than simply to establish Mr Vaughn as the boy’s father — Mr Vaughn would be on the hook for child support.
It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out the tangled weblines here. If Miss Williams wins her lawsuit, Miss Wilson could sue her for child support. If Miss Williams wins on appeal, and becomes the boy’s legal ‘parent,’ and Miss Wilson passes away, Miss Williams could then sue Mr Vaughn for child support. If Miss Williams wins on appeal, Miss Wilson disappears somehow, and Mr Vaughn retains custody, he could sue Miss Williams for child support. Remember: the courts are arms of the state, and it is in the state’s interest to have two parents legally responsible for supporting children. If Misses Williams and Wilson had not split up, but found themselves in poverty, they could have sued Mr Vaughn for child support.
In many heterosexual couple divorces, parents use the children as weapons against each other.
There is no good outcome here, and the little boy is caught in the middle of it. Had Obergefell gone the other way, and Misses Wilson and Williams never been legally married, there would be fewer issues, but bad law leads to bad outcomes. Divorce can turn out very badly for normal couples when children are involved.
In Oliver Twist, Mr Bumble, the unhappy husband of an overbearing wife, responds to the court telling him that “…the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction”, to which he replies, “If the law supposes that, the law is a ass – a idiot”. Our laws are written by mortal men, under the presumptions of normal life. Obergefell was a decision which was contrary to the democratically-established norms in almost every state, and the stupidity of that decision had rolled downhill, affecting many other laws crafted to support normal life
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: AFNN_USA
That’s a story with a lot of twists and turns. Good illustration how “man and woman” should still be the norm for marriage, too.
That is one big screw up, Obergefell, that is.
This happened because liberal judges refuse to be confined by clear language in the law and proceed to legislate from the bench. It is a danger to the Republic.