The tangled web of homosexual parenting has resulted in a Canadian court ruling that means a child could have three or four legally recognised parents. The players in the court case are a lesbian couple, a gay man (who is married to his partner), and the child born to one of the women using the man’s sperm. The man was known to the women and deliberately chosen as the donor.A contract was signed by the three adults before the child, a girl, was born in 2002, setting out his rights as a “co-parent” including regular access as well as full custody if both women were to die. It also included a promise to try for a “three-way” adoption, which was never followed through.

The friendship between the three has deteriorated and the two women have tried to reduce the man’s access to the child. In the latest legal action the lesbian couple asked a family court judge to order the father to give his consent to have the non-birth “mother” being named as an adoptive parent of the child. Presently, the father and the birth mother are the legal parents. The man objected, saying it would reduce his status that of a mere sperm donor. Justice Marian Cohen ruled in favour of the father, saying it was in the best interests of the child for him to maintain his active relationship with the child.

"This case is not about protecting nuclear families to reduce their anxieties," said the judge. "In this case I am considering the legal situation of a self-constructed, non-traditional family, the three-parent family created by these parties. For the sake of the child and in their own best interests, the parties will have to live with their choices," the judge concluded. ~ National Post, Jan 29