Mitt Romney Rejected Birth Certificates for Massachusetts Children Born to Same-Sex Couples

[courseofhistory]

Mitt Romney Rejected Birth Certificates for Massachusetts Children Born to Same-Sex Couples

Mitt Romney took unprecedented steps as governor of Massachusetts to discriminate against families headed by same-sex couples, including demanding that his administration personally review every request to revise birth certificates for children born to same-sex parents. According to a report in the Boston Globe, Romney rejected a request from the state’s Registry of Vital Records and Statistics to revise birth certificate forms to apply to same-sex parents. Instead, Romney insisted his lawyers investigate every single request for birth certificates for children born to same-sex couples. If Romney’s team decided a request was worthy of revising a birth certificate, officials could then write-in, by hand, the term ‘second parent’ on the legal document. In some instances, Romney denied parents proper birth certificates for their children.

The state’s Department of Public Health warned Romney that his intervention placed children at a disadvantage, particularly later in life as they tried to obtain various forms of identification such as a passport or driver’s license, or as they registered to vote. The same DPH official also warned that allowing officials to alter birth certificates by hand – as opposed to simply revising the forms, as the state’s Registry of Vital Records and Statistics had recommended – was tantamount to a violation of statutes, and would impair efforts to keep organized state records.

Romney, who has a significant track record of deriding LGBT families and speaking out against relationship recognition, appeared not to care what impact his close oversight of same-sex families had on the law. The Globe reports that emails between Romney officials and the Department of Public Health contained details about the marriages and births of dozens of families.

[...]

http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/mitt-romney-rejected-birth-certificates-for-massachusetts-children-born-to

[TroyD]

1. He's a vile man

This is why voters should not be fooled by 'Moderate Mitt'.

[bluerum]

2. Unbridled bigotry

[Raster]

4. Yes, and his unbridled bigotry is more than sanctioned by his church.

[xchrom]

3. Du rec. Nt

[Lionessa]

5. Okay, I'm sure I'll be flamed, but

with the exception of the man who chose to stop midway with his/her sex change and had a baby, the one in Seattle I believe, same sex parents are incapable of having their own children. I think birth certificates should be biologically correct for the potential health concerns of the child in later life. I mean if someone is born of one marriage and then adopted through a second marriage the birth certificate doesn't change, it stays with the biological parents. I think there may be a rational, medical reason for not putting a non-biologically participating parent on a birth certificate.

That said, I doubt Rmoney was thinking about that when he made his decision, he was just being a winger conservative.

[noamnety]

7. Here's why I'd flame you:

A birth resulting from donated eggs still lists the birth mother as the mother even though it's not her biological DNA.

[Lionessa]

8. I didn't know that, and don't think it should be. I think BC's should be biologically accurate.

Since that's the case, I stand down.

[noamnety]

9. Same goes for fathers vs. sperm donors, btw.

And I think many sperm donors / egg donors may have personal reasons for not wanting to be listed as parents on strangers' birth certificates.

Also, as a side note - it could potentially be a privacy and safety issue for women to have to list who they had sex with for a birth certificate.

[Lionessa]

10. Also those women who just lie about the father to not get caught by husbands,

but for the sake of the child, I stand by my opinion that regardless of the reasons, BC should be biologically correct. If one's privacy is SOOOO important that the potential future health requirements of the child are to be ignored, then one shouldn't have a baby. Just my opinion.

I stand down in that, since it isn't that way, I guess adding more lies to a BC is no different than what's already going on, but I think all of the mentioned scenarios are not with the best interest of the child at heart.

[noamnety]

11. It may or may not be in the best interest of a child.

Not arguing the main issue, I get you are siding with consistency with existing laws.

Just saying that in some cases it might be best for the child and in other cases not best for the mother to come clean if the partner/spouse isn't the father. (honor killings, retaining access to health care, for just a few examples.)

[courseofhistory]

6. Romney is

a pititful excuse for a human being. He supposedly values a fetus' life above the mother's but yet rejects children of gay couples in the most fundamental way. Jerk!

[HopeHoops]

12. Yep. He's about the most hateful fucker I've ever known about other than Cheney.