Gay parents face difficult choices in anti-gay Virginia
Starting in 2004 with the Marriage Affirmation Act, which outlawed any partnership contract purporting to provide the benefits of marriage, Virginia’s conservatives crusaded for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which passed last month and goes into effect Jan. 1. The state also does not allow for second-parent adoptions for unwed couples, rendering Poe a legal stranger to her daughter in the eyes of the law.
Washington Blade has an exclusive story: Fight or flight?
By KATHERINE VOLIN
When Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, announced her pregnancy through a spokesperson last week, reactions were mixed.Gay rights opponents were predictably appalled at the idea of a gay couple raising a child, while supporters expressed frustration that by working on her father’s re-election campaign, Cheney had supported a political regime that would deny her own partner’s parenting rights.
Cheney, who did not respond to interview requests, is pregnant with a child due in the spring that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, intend to raise together. Adding to the irony of the story is that the moms-to-be live in Virginia, which has some of the most restrictive anti-gay laws in the country.
Starting in 2004 with the Marriage Affirmation Act, which outlawed any partnership contract purporting to provide the benefits of marriage, Virginia’s conservatives crusaded for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which passed last month and goes into effect Jan. 1. The state also does not allow for second-parent adoptions for unwed couples, rendering Poe a legal stranger to her daughter in the eyes of the law.
“After Jan. 1, when the amendment becomes effective, I’m afraid to say that we suspect there will be someone whose goal is to disrupt Virginia families for one reason or another and then it’s just going to have be played out in court,” says Jay Squires, a local lawyer and head of the board of directors for Equality Virginia, a gay rights group.
Squires also says that there are concerns that “some judge some place is actually going to hold that the amendment has the effect of invalidating agreements that were legally binding.”
In the meantime, he recommends a wait-and-see approach for gay parents in Virginia regarding the implications of the amendment, but it’s possible that families will be torn apart by the Commonwealth’s new law.
SOME OF VIRGINIA’S gay parents are divided over whether they should stay or flee the state for more gay-friendly environs.
Sally Baird, an Arlington school board member and the first openly lesbian elected official in Virginia, has lived in the state with her partner Karen Foster for 18 years. The pair has two sons, the first of whom was born in Virginia six years ago, but the second was intentionally delivered in Maryland.
“When I was about to give birth to our youngest son, we did move to Maryland and we rented a house,” Baird says. While in Maryland, her partner adopted both sons. “We actually thought that we might well stay in Maryland.”
The couple found that they missed their friends and life in Arlington, however, so they moved back.
“It was a tough choice,” Baird says. “If we hadn’t stayed in Arlington, we would’ve left the state. When you have kids, the worst fear is thinking that some friend is going to tease them or they’re not going to be able to go to some friend’s house because they wouldn’t approve. In Arlington, I just don’t have that worry.”
Gay parent Marc Defrancis, who has teenage children from a former marriage to a woman, says that bullying is a concern for kids as they get older. His children went to schools in gay-friendly cities Arlington and Alexandria, but coming out to their classmates about their father wasn’t easy.
“It’s one thing when you’re in preschool and they’re like, ‘That’s cool,’” Defrancis, 51, says. “It’s a different thing when you’re in fifth grade.”
Baird does say that her advice to Cheney or anyone else who’s considering raising children in Virginia is to give birth elsewhere.
“That was something I learned only after I gave birth to the first child,” Baird says. “In Virginia, they … would not add a same-sex parent as a second parent on the birth certificate.”
SCOTT DAVENPORT, A gay parent who raises his Virginia-born children in Maryland with his partner, faced the same trouble when he and his partner tried to get both of their names on the children’s birth certificates.
After a 10-year court battle, Virginia’s Department of Vital Statistics was finally compelled by the state’s supreme court to issue them a new birth certificate, but they named Davenport’s partner as the father and Davenport as the mother. Davenport has asked the agency to reissue the birth certificates with both of the men listed under the gender-neutral term “parents,” but to no avail.
“They refuse to do that, and I’m partially convinced at this point that we don’t have legal standing because of the amendment,” Davenport, 49, says.
Davenport, who is president of the board of Equality Maryland and an organizer for Equality Montgomery County, says that even though his employer is located in Virginia, he and his partner made a “conscious decision” not to reside in the Commonwealth.
“We knew that the political and cultural climate would be vastly better for ourselves and for our children in Maryland than in Virginia,” Davenport says. “This is a long-standing tradition of discrimination that they have.”
Given the legal wrangling experienced by gay families in Virginia, Baird recommends that potential gay parents receive legal advice and prepare medical directives if one of the partners will be in the hospital giving birth.
“If you want to make sure that you’re both going to become full legal parents, you’re going to need to plan to spend some time out of the state, I’m afraid,” Baird adds.
COURTNEY ANDREWS, 32, moved with her partner to Virginia from Chicago in 2003. The two then moved to Maryland for a year after Andrews’ partner gave birth to twin boys.
“I wasn’t even going to set foot in the state of Virginia until I had my adoption papers,” Andrews says.
The two moved to California with their sons last year. The move, Andrews says, was partially an escape from Virginia and what they found to be an unwelcoming atmosphere, motivated on the one hand by the somewhat transient nature of the D.C. metro area and on the other by the state’s restrictive laws regarding gay rights.
“It was our experience that people didn’t form lasting connections with people,” Andrews says. “It wasn’t really what we were looking for. Arlington was very progressive and we had a wonderful experience with our pediatrician’s office. At the hospital, everyone was very welcoming. We didn’t have any awkward moments.
“But the state of Virginia is terribly homophobic legally speaking, which doesn’t appeal to me in paying my taxes to a state that doesn’t recognize my relationship and my family.”
Some gay parents don’t have the luxury of packing up and moving — particularly those with children from a previous relationship.
Barbara Wrigley, 52, has two sons, ages 15 and 17, from her marriage to a man. The boys’ father lives in Virginia, 20 minutes away from Wrigley’s home in Alexandria. Although Wrigley’s partner, JoLynne Flores, has been helping raise the boys for the past 12 years, Virginia’s laws mean that Flores has no legal relationship to them.
Should something happen to either Wrigley or her ex-husband, Flores’ right to see the children could disappear.
“If I had the option, I certainly would not live in Virginia even though I grew up here,” Wrigley says. “I love this area, I love Northern Virginia, but our legal status here is so precarious that it’s always hanging in the background like this sword of fantasy. When is the sword going to fall? When are our rights going to be severed?”
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