By Gudrun Schultz
LifesiteNews.com
TORONTO, Ontario, January 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Ontario Court of Appeal, in another major Ontario judicial activist decision, has ruled that a five-year-old Ontario boy has three legal parents. The Appeals Court, overturning an emphatic lower court ruling, granted the boy’s father, biological mother and the mother’s lesbian partner equal rights and responsibilities under law, in a decision released yesterday.
“This ruling clearly shows the extent to which the homosexual activists will pursue their agenda regardless of the welfare of children,” said Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), in a press release today.
A lower court ruling on the case in 2003 said the Ontario Children’s Law Reform Act could not be interpreted as recognizing more than two persons as parents by birth or adoption. In his ruling, Justice David Aston said at the time that allowing more than two parents ““might open the floodgates to similar claims from step-parents or members of the child’s extended family.”
“If a child can have three parents,” Aston wrote, “why not four or six or a dozen? What about all the adults in a commune or a religious organization or sect? Quite apart from social policy implications, the potential to create or exacerbate custody and access litigation should not be ignored.”
While the Appeal Court agreed, the Court also found that the existing law did not take into account changes to Canadian society which affected parenting, leaving a sufficiently serious “gap” to require the intervention of the court. The lower court ruling was overturned and all three persons in question were granted parental rights.
“The courts must not continue to acquiesce to the homosexual agenda, but rather, must consider the fact that a child deserves a father and a mother in a stable relationship for the child’s nurturing,” said Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer of Campaign Life Coalition, in response to the decision. “Attacks on the family unit will ultimately lead to the destruction of our society. Where will the line be drawn on such multiple parent rulings, and what is the future environment for our children?”
The Catholic Civil Rights League, which participated in the case as an intervenor as part of the Alliance for Marriage and Family, spoke out against the Appeal Court decision yesterday.
"It is clear that courts will be asked to fill in many gaps that exist in traditional understandings of family, as a result of changes to the definition of marriage, and parent, in Canadian law," said League President Phil Horgan.
"Canadian courts have recognized lesbian parents on birth certificates to the exclusion of any father in the past year. The Court of Appeal has now expanded the number of recognized parents to three in this case. Future cases can be expected to ask to expand that number. In this case, the obvious question is that if a child can have three parents, who is to say three is the limit?"
The effect of such triple-parent arrangements on children is entirely unknown, the League said, nor is there any clarity as to what will happen to the children if the adults’ relationships should break down.
The Court of Appeal’s decision was written by Justice Marc Rosenberg on behalf of Justice Jean-Marc Labrosse and activist Justice Roy McMurtry, whose ruling in 2003 on the Halpern case effectively opened the door to homosexual “marriage” in Canada.
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
Not Recusing Himself For Conflict, Activist Judge Pushes Way Into Three Parent Case
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/oct/06102403.html
