Editor's note: The Rev. Lowell Grisham, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, contributed to this column.
We are both pastors who love to celebrate the birth of a child with the families in our congregations. We share their joy and gratefulness.
We were grieved to read of the recent Arkansas Supreme Court decision to discriminate against married same-sex couples, refusing them "the same right to have their names appear automatically on their children's birth certificate as some heterosexual partners do." The court upheld the Arkansas Department of Health's practice toward same-sex married couples to put the mother's name on the birth certificate and to leave the other name blank. That seems like a heartless and insulting practice.
It is simple for the child of a heterosexual couple to get two parents' names on a birth certificate. When a husband and wife have a child, the husband's name is placed on the birth certificate whether or not the husband actually is the biological father. If an unmarried mother gives birth, the mother and the father simply sign an affidavit of paternity.
The same simple rules should apply to same-sex couples. Let each be listed as parent for the child they will nurture and love. Treat all couples equally as the U. S. Supreme Court authorized in Obergfell vs. Hodges.
The health department does have an interest in recording biological lineage, but that certainly seems a secondary concern to the primary value of a child's full identity as a member the family who will love and nurture the child. Biological information can be securely stored in the state files. But let a child's birth certificate list the real, custodial parents.
For pastors like us, who treasure our faithful same-sex couples and their beautiful families, it is hard to trust Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who seems willing to spend the state's money to file lawsuits that obviously violate Constitutional guarantees of equal protection. It is also hard to trust legislators who keep filing bills to uphold discrimination against our LGBT neighbors. One of us is old enough to remember similar Jim Crow laws against our black neighbors.
This all looks pretty simple to us. Simply love your neighbor as yourself, and let the loving families in our churches be acknowledged as the parents of the children they will love and nurture.
NAN Religion on 01/14/2017