Nebraska choose: Birth certificates cannot identify 2 moms | National

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska choose has rejected a lawsuit filed by two Omaha girls who sought to have each their names listed as dad and mom on their kids’s beginning certificates, saying the request conflicts with state regulation.

Lancaster County District Choose Ryan Put up stated in his ruling final month dismissing the lawsuit that state regulation requires beginning certificates to acknowledge paternity. Nebraska Division of Well being and Human Providers coverage additionally requires that oldsters listed on beginning certificates be the organic dad and mom of the kid, he stated.

The Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued the state final yr on behalf of Erin Porterfield and Kristin Williams. They stated the Nebraska Division of Well being and Human Providers repeatedly denied their request to amend one son’s beginning certificates of their effort to get full authorized recognition as dad and mom of each their sons — one born to every girl conceived via a sperm donor.

Porterfield and Williams had been in a romantic partnership from 2000 to 2013 — two years earlier than same-sex marriage was legalized in Nebraska. Porterfield gave beginning to their first son in 2002, and Williams gave beginning to their second son in 2005 earlier than their romantic relationship resulted in 2013. However each girls proceed to share parenting duties.

Of their lawsuit, the ladies stated that state officers deal with single, same-sex {couples} in another way than single, opposite-sex {couples}, violating their due course of and equal safety rights.

The ladies argued of their lawsuit that itemizing them each is important as a result of it might have an effect on their kids’s eligibility for presidency advantages, ought to one thing occur to one in all them. In addition they accused the state of sexual discrimination as a result of it permits males to voluntarily acknowledge that they’re dad and mom to get onto a beginning certificates, however doesn’t enable girls to take action.

“Our sons are our entire world and we want to make sure we’re doing right by them,” Porterfield stated when the lawsuit was filed. “Our boys have a right to the security of having both parents on their birth certificates, a required document in so many life changes and decisions. That’s why this matters to us.”

However Choose Put up stated the ladies didn’t determine “a single court that has adopted their constitutional arguments.”

“The court certainly understands why plaintiffs seek a policy change,” Put up wrote. “But that policy decision is for the Legislature, not this court.”