As lawyers in Georgia know well, divorces provide their share of wrinkles and unusual situations in child custody cases. While many cases proceed without a lot of complications, others present unique challenges to the parents, the lawyers and the judges. In recent years, child custody cases involving same -sex parents have been in the forefront of stretching the boundaries of child custody rulings.
According to a report in the New York Post, a recent child custody case involved four parents and one child. The sperm donors were a gay male couple, and the recipients were a lesbian couple, and each couple hoped to share the raising of the child. When this arrangement broke down after nine months, the courts had to adjudicate the matter in an unsettled area of law.
When a gay person deals with a child custody case after a divorce or a separation, a complicated variety of scenarios may be present. One factor could be a case where one person is gay and the other is a heterosexual. A recent article in The Guardian relates how a gay man was put at a disadvantage in a custody case because his former wife was a heterosexual. The article cites a recent study that gay parents often experience discrimination as to their fitness as parents.
As each state struggles with how it views gay parents, the stability of family law in this area is anything but settled. More than likely, new cases in child custody cases involving gay and lesbian couples will continue to set new precedents and to require more financial commitments for clients.
