Mediate Michigan

You may have seen the recent media reports that singer Melissa Ethridge and her partner of five years, Tammy Lynn, are splitting up. The California couple had two children together. California law recognizes same-sex couples and allows for dissolution of a partnership through the courts, where disputes over property, child custody and visitation are resolved.

Conversely, Michigan law unfortunately does recognize same-sex relationships and the doors to the courts in Michigan remain closed to gay couples when their relationships end.

It’s discouraging and disheartening that Michigan courts apparently only view parent-child relationships in the tidy world of traditional heterosexual nuclear families, when in fact there are so many children who do not live in that world and are being raised in non-traditional families. Our state legislature has yet to summon the courage or insight to amend Michigan law to acknowledge this reality. In the meantime, the courts and our elected lawmakers fail our children when they put “tradition” ahead of the best interest of child.

But there is an equally disheartening element in response to this prejudice at law: When same sex couples experiencing a contentious break-up use these barriers in the law to deny an established parent-child relationship.

via PrideSource – Viewpoint: Gays using anti-gay law.