2 Pieces of Good News For New York’s Gay Parents

The New York Court of Appeals just handed down two rulings that recognized greater rights same-sex couples who adopt and raise children in out-of-state civil unions. Their 3-to 4-ruling entitles a woman to seek child support from her former partner, even though her partner is not the child’s biological mother. And in the second case the court unanimously ruled that a child’s legal parent should be allowed to seek visitation rights, even if she is not the biological parent. Lambda Legal calls the second ruling “a real breakthrough in New York” because the court recognized an out-of-state civil union as granting full legal parental status to a both partners. But then those activist judges had to leave it up to New York’s lawmakers as to whether full custody rights for nonbiological parents and civil unionized couples would be realized.