Despite that whole Prop 8 thing, California continues to be a leader in legal protections for LGBT families.
Governor Jerry Brown signed a law Monday that will allow a child to have more than two legal parents. The L.A. Times reports that State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) authored the measure to address changing family situations, including ones in which “same-sex couples have a child with an opposite-sex biological parent.”
Indeed, the legislation was motivated by the story of a lesbian couple and a man with whom one of them got pregnant during a hiatus in their relationship. “A fight broke out, putting one of the women in the hospital and the other in jail, but the daughter was sent to foster care because her biological father did not have parental rights,” says the paper.
The bill’s been in the works for a while (Brown vetoed a version last year), but the Canadians have been ahead of the U.S. in this regard for some time.
And in other good news, Brown also signed a bill Tuesday that will ensure that unmarried and married same-sex and different-sex couples have equal access to fertility treatments. The AP (via LGBTQ Nation) reports that the bill will require health insurers to offer fertility coverage to everyone who purchases a plan, “either individually or through group insurance.”
They continue, “One complication facing same-sex couples is that insurance coverage for fertility treatments typically does not kick in until couples have tried to conceive naturally for 12 months.” I hope a future bill will change that. In the meantime, better keep trying, gals.