Homoparentality

The homoparentality indicates the bond of right or fact which binds a child or children to a homosexual couple of .

Inevitably different from many other family constructions, the homoparentality shares common points all the same:

  • Parentalité, Couple and Procréation is not necessarily synonymous;
  • coexistence of the social parents, who did not design the child but act like parents, and parents biological S;
  • the sexual life does not prejudge parental competences.

The homoparentality raises many questions, in particular due to the glance which the company carries: transparency on the biological origins of the child, coexistence of natural parents and parents social and the place of the latter; but the majority are not therefore specific and also cross other family forms such as the adoptive families, Single-parent family S, recomposed Famille S.

Concepts

Even if the increase in the number of single-parent families or recomposed strongly changed the traditional diagram composed of a father, of a Mère and Enfant S, the homoparentales families present diagrams more complex than the hétérosexuelles families. Let us recall nevertheless that this design of the family, that one calls Nuclear family, is a relatively recent design, developed to the XIXe century in the Western company. One has before, for example with the Middle Ages in occident, a model of widened Famille which includes/understands also the large parents. In ancient Greece, the family gathers also the slaves having to obey the Familias Lord's Prayer.

In order to obtain a legal recognition of the homoparentales families, associations were initially to create (or begin again) concepts to define the whole of the actors who compose the family and who also benefit all the contemporary family diagrams where procreation, parentality and relation of couple are not necessarily superimposed.

  • Coparentalité : project of parentality implying a man and a woman, of which one at least is homosexual, and their possible partners.

  • biological Relative: genetic synonym of relative.
  • legal Relative: biological relative who recognized the child (that it exerts or not the parental authority) or adoptive relative.
  • Mother for others: woman carrying the child of a man who is the father; she can be the biological mother of the child or not.
  • social Relative: nobody who behaves like relative without having the statute of legal relative. It can be a question according to whether she took part or not in the parental project of one:
    • beautiful-parent: nobody acting like a relative with respect to the child;
    • Co-parent: legal relative in a project of Coparentalité or partners of the aforesaid legal parents;
    • second relative: homosexual partner who takes part in the education of the child when there is one legal relative.

Forms

The homoparentality, which implies the presence of at least a homosexual relative, gathers several different marital statuses and which one classifies according to the origin of the children:

Former hétérosexuelles unions

One of the biological parents of the child lives now with a person of the same sex (or wishes it).

Sometimes the partner of the relative acts like a social relative, while investing himself in the education and the care carried to the child, whom he loves independently of filiation.

The question of the statute of the third arises then, of the beautiful-parent, with whom the legal parents could possibly share the parental authority.

This question also arises at the heterosexual couples even if, in this context, the recognition of the child can be done by thanks to an act of notoriety by means of evidence and testimonys in front of a notary or the magistrates' court (possession of state) or a judgment, a declaration in front of an officer of registry office or a notary (notarial act).

Adoption by only one person

If the person lives in couple, the children have a single legal filiation whereas they are high in fact, and often wanted, by two parents.

But the children can be private bonds which they wove with the person who is not their legal relative, in the event of death or of separation.

It will be noted that this situation concerns also the boyfriends heterosexuals but they have the possibility of marrying to adopt to two.

Whenever the homoparentality is not recognized, the adoption by only one of the members of the couple is sometimes possible (it is the case in France, where the adoption by a “single person” is possible but not by a couple bound by a PACS). This solution however is often made difficult by the services of adoption for the people posting their homosexuality and requires, if one wants to dissimulate his homosexuality, to lie on its Sexual orientation to even deny the existence of a companion or a partner in the case of a single person declared like such (near the services of the taxes, for example) but alive, in fact, in couple.

Exceptionally, the simple Adoption could be used in France, in order to create bonds of filiation between a child and the partner of the same sex of a relative without putting an end to the legal family ties with this relative. Adopting only the parental authority exerts then. However a judgment delivered by the Court of appeal the February 24th 2006 modifies the state of jurisprudence: he recognizes for the first time at two women who live a relation stable and harmonious the right to jointly exert the Parental authority on two children that they raise together since their birth: the mother only titular of the parental authority then delegates whole or part of the exercise of this authority to her partner.

February 20th, 2007, the Court of appeal by breaking a stop of the Court of Appeal of Bourges made impossible the homoparentale adoption by the other unites.

Joint adoption

August 1st

Procreation médicalement assisted

The French law prohibited insemination with donor with the people alone or homosexual and prohibits the recourse to maternity for others (surrogate mother).

As in the adoption by only one person, the children have one legal relative here and their bonds with the “second relative” are not protected, in particular in the event of separation, of death or disability.

Project of coparentality

There is from two to four people around the cradle of the child: natural parents i.e. a mother lesbian and/or a gay father, and their possible partners, which allows the joint presence of figures paternal and maternal.

With the difference of the parents-in-law who arrive in the second time, the partners are Co-parents, because they are ready to engage with respect to the child as of his design. They ensure the daily newspaper like the natural parents and feel parents with whole share even if they do not have the legal statute of it.

Country where the adoption by two of the same people sex is allowed

Currently, the joint Adoption (included there when one of the partners is biological relative) is authorized in the following countries and territories:

The adoption of the child of the of the same partner sex (creation of a double legal parentality of the two partners) is authorized (under divergent conditions) in the following countries and territories:

Controversies on the homoparentality

Arguments given by the defenders of the homoparentality

  • Equality of all in front of the law (equal rights). Certain defenders of the equal rights consider even the refusal to accept and recognize the homoparentality like a form of homophobie.
  • the adoption for the homosexual couples is a false debate since those can already adopt in various ways (see above). It is more a question of granting the same rights to the children resulting from couples hétéros or homos (parentality, succession…).
  • To fill a gap in the law: there exist families of which " parents sociaux" are an homosexual couple.
  • No study could show that the children raised in single-parent families are less happy than the others and have problems to adapt socially, which contradicts the argument of the opponents to the homoparentality, for which the children would need a father and a mother to structure itself psychologically. Let us stress that these studies, are made extremely compartmental in mediums socially very particular, do not have to in no case the retreat of a generation at least to judge evolution of the children, and are obviously not reproducible.
  • The complete biological parentality is not necessary to the psychosocial development of the young person . That the social parents are the biological parents or not has less of influence than the types of authorities used in education (democratic, authoritative or permissive). Many families in various cultures entrust " with vie" their children with others. Let us specify however that in Black Africa, the social behaviors “alternative” are in general firmly, and sometimes same violently, repress.
  • In the same way, nothing shows that the children of homosexual parents would become more often homosexual than the children of parents of different sex. Nor even as that influences their acceptance of homosexuality in their future social life. Many mentioned problems are only related to the character " inavouable" statute of their parents vis-a-vis a company which would be still intolerant, however the social models of family evolve/move.
  • Of the psychological problems can occur with adolescence, but some estimate that they are not different from those lived by the other children when the development of the personal identity independent of that of the parents takes place. The problems of identity of the teenagers are not inherent in the statute of the parents , this phase doing without in a completely normal way by a rejection posted parents, and a catch of transgressive autonomy intended to test the degrees of freedom whose children lay out to form their own personality of future adult. These periods of conflicts are as delicate or difficult for the teenager of homosexual parents as for the children of parents heterosexuals.

Arguments given by the opponents to the homoparentality

  • For some, the human society is based on differentiation between men and women but a child raised by two people of the same sex is not confronted with the daily newspaper with the two sexes (the situation is same in the case of the single-parent families with the difference that a relative can still marry and to have a person of the other sex).
  • Confusion between equal rights and right to the equality. It is not necessary to speak about equal rights in front of a different gasoline situation since the homosexual couples cannot have of child. Why " oublier" this sexual differentiation to give to the child two people same sex? The homosexual scenario writer Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote that such rights were the trap even.

  • Abolition of the production. The problem is not that the homosexual couples will make bad parents. To say that the homosexual ones can raise children by no means amounts saying that they are able to make some. If a sterile couple can adopt a child, it is especially that it represents sexual differentiation and that it could have some if a physical deficiency had not reached at least one of both. This is not worth for the homosexual couple since in fact, it is not a deficiency which affects them, but the fact that they are of the same sex - what is a major counter-indication to have children in a sexuée species.

  • the marriage and the homoparentality never caused debates in the centuries spent on behalf of the homosexual ones. As recalled by Philippe Muray in the article “the marriage transformed by its same single people”, the heterosexuals never had to fight to marry and to have children! As the civil code indicates it to article 75, the marriage results from the union of a man and a woman (" It will receive each part, one after the other, the declaration which they want to be caught for husband and femme".)

  • This concept is an inversion of prospect, because it makes pass the right to the child for any adult, before the right for any child to have a " family; quelconque" , i.e. the priority person is not any more the child, but the adult who wishes to have a child, even if it means to take certain risks with the possible detriment of this last .

  • the people against the homoparentality do not deny for the majority the sincere love which two of the same people can have sex for a child. But a child needs also psychic and social reference marks which or would not be brought to him, according to them, by an homosexual couple.
  • the people opposed to the homoparentality are not obligatorily homophobes if not, by parity and equality, it is necessary to create the hétérophobie. Let us recall that the National advisory commission of the human rights estimated that the anti-homophobe bill must be withdrawn because prejudicial with freedom of expression.
  • In 2004, there were in France 23.000 couples on standby adoption while 5 times less children were on standby to be adopted (approximately 5000). Instead of increasing further the number of couples waiting to adopt, the catholic Life parades proposes a reform of the procedures of adoption so that the whole of the orphans can find a family of reception quickly.
  • Aujourd'hui only 13 out of 226 countries gave the right to adopt with the couples of of the same people sex. Nevertheless, these countries are increasingly numerous.
  • the studies made on the subject have a low value because they do not have the retreat necessary (at least a generation), relate to very a small number of “hearths” (nonrepresentative statistically) and are not reproducible.
  • All the homosexual ones or lesbians do not support the homosexual marriage and the homoparentality seeing an imitation towards the heterosexuals there as the novelist Benoît Duteurtre in the happy city raises it (Beech, 2007), imitation referring to the mimetic desire of the anthropologist Rene Girard.
  • These new levelling claims make fall the democracy in the democratism Alexis de Tocqueville had already raised that this passion of equality is prejudicial with freedom.
  • For certain thinkers, these new levelling claims form part more largely of a néo-liberal deregulation, this one having interest with désymboliser and to make lose any reference mark with the human being in order to have a better influence on him, encouraging its selfishness so expensive with Adam Smith in his major book " Richness of the nations". Body without border like the capital. Concomitance between liberal deregulation, protest movement of 1968 and rise of postmodern philosophies.

Scientific studies and sociological on the homoparentality

Many scientific studies and sociological were carried out since about fifteen years on the homoparentality and the development of the child raised by homosexual couples (gay or lesbians). The results vary according to the studies: some conclude that the children raised by homosexual couples are likely more to develop mental health disorders during their adolescence and that the homosexual ones are ready to raise a child than the heterosexual couples, others conclude that there are no differences (on the level of the quality of education given and risks of psychological disorders) between the children raised by the homosexual ones and those raised by heterosexuals.

The conferences on the homoparentality and the reports/ratios of studies on the subject have multiplied for a few years in Europe and North America. Currently, these conferences and this work mainly tend to confirm the arguments of the defenders of the homoparentality.

According to a study of 2006 carried out by EHESS and CNRS, more than 90% of the research tasks completed on the subject conclude with the absence from risks for the children raised by homosexual couples.

Nevertheless, of many doubts remain as for the validity of the studies carried out. In particular, criticisms relate to bad samplings carried out (couples chosen for the studies and not selected by chance, selection of groups of control - heterosexual couples - inadequate…) and on the absence of follow-up of the children over the duration (difficulties of following the development of the child of its birth or its adoption until the adulthood). In a general way, the majority of the researchers on the subject (whatever the results of their studies) in addition agree to say that they do not have yet the retreat necessary to advance reliable and unquestionable conclusions.

These studies are sometimes diffused by Association S pro or anti-homoparentalité. In these cases, it is frequent that associations quote only the studies supporting their point of view. For example, in France, associations S.O.S toddlers or Life Parade judge like “serious” only the studies supporting their arguments. In the same way, associations pro-homoparentalité (APGL mainly in France) practically never quote research not going in their direction.

It also happens that reports/ratios of studies are required or carried out by associations. It is the case for example of the APGL which regularly quotes work of its Co-president Martine Gross, engineer of research CNRS - EHESS, or of the Spanish association Hazteoir, which, in collaboration with other anti-homoparentalité associations, compiled in a report/ratio the studies supporting their opinions.

The access to neutral and complete information on the subject is then difficult, associations being for the general public the principal vector of diffusion of this research.

See too

Jurisprudence

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