{"id":849,"date":"2016-06-30T19:07:33","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T19:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/?p=849"},"modified":"2021-12-29T21:04:15","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T21:04:15","slug":"equality-the-unwavering-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/equality-the-unwavering-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Equality: The Unwavering Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our hearts are filled with sadness following the horrific June 12 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando. A gunman opened fire on innocent men and women, killing forty-nine people and injuring more than 50. The shooter destroyed the lives of countless individuals, including the family and friends of those who lost their lives.\"ID-100176058\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The sheer disregard for human life displayed by the shooter reminds all of us that discrimination against homosexuals has not been eradicated.<\/p>\n

On June 24, 2015, same-sex marriage was declared legal in the United States following the Supreme Court\u2019s landmark ruling. While the Court\u2019s decision was an enormous stride for equality, this massacre aimed at homosexuals has turned back the clock. Naturally, it is causing many to worry about how intolerance continues to build barriers.<\/p>\n

While most of the nation joined together in solidarity in the wake of this tragic event, CNN<\/a> reports that one county in Alabama did not join in, showcasing the divide still occurring within the United States.<\/p>\n

Reporter Deena Zaru writes, \u201cOfficials in an Alabama county refused to lower flags to half-staff to honor the victims of the Orlando mass shooting this week even after President Barack Obama and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley\u00a0ordered\u00a0flags to be lowered.\u201d She continues on, \u201cCiting the\u00a0U.S. Flag Code, Baldwin County Commissioner Tucker Dorsey told CNN’s Erin Burnett on \u2018OutFront\u2019 Friday that while he is \u2018certainly heartbroken in the face of tragedy,\u2019 the code states that the flag should only be lowered \u2018for instances where there are the passing of individuals who have given significant distinguished service to our country.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the narrow-minded opposition, the LGBT community and their allies will unite even stronger in their fight for human rights, dignity, and respect. Education needs to be at the forefront of the effort to break down these barriers and achieve true equality.<\/p>\n

Part of this education is the fact that when the Court made its historic ruling legalizing marriage for \u00a0all, they also believed that parentage rights became equal for all.<\/p>\n

For the most part, the general public was unaware that the issue of parentage was not included in the landmark ruling. Even those same-sex couples marrying after the decision do not have a clear path to equal parental rights, as individual states still control who may appear on a birth certificate, with no mandate from the Supreme Court for both spouses to be registered as a child\u2019s parents. Additionally, there is a group of same-sex parents who had children before the legalization of \u201cmarriage for all,\u201d who will potentially have no legal rights to their children in the event of separation. \u00a0\u00a0In most cases, only one parent is on the birth certificate because there was no \u201cmarital presumption\u201d at the time of the child\u2019s birth, which could deprive the former partner of any legal right to the child they have been co-parenting, sometimes for years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a daunting position to be in, and great care needs to be taken to ascertain that both parents receive the same rights to their children, regardless of whether they were married at the time the children were born.<\/p>\n

While laws will evolve, interim parentage issues will be challenging and may result in heartbreak.\u00a0 That\u2019s why parentage is the next legal journey to embark on. We need to ensure that same-sex couples have equal opportunity to establish parental rights as compared to their heterosexual counterparts, or else marriage equality remains somewhat superficial.<\/p>\n

As mentioned before, laws and court rulings are still catching up with the twenty-first century. Recently, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous and dramatic ruling regarding the Full Faith & Credit Clause. The Court reversed the Alabama Supreme Court\u2019s decision not to recognize a same-sex adoption decree issued by a Georgia court.\u00a0 The ruling affirmed that adoption decrees issued by a court with jurisdiction over the matter in one state will be given \u201cfull faith and credit\u201d in other states. The application of this decision to other areas of the law involving parental rights, including surrogacy, could have dramatic effects on the rights of same-sex couples.<\/p>\n

In this modern American era, there\u2019s no room for bigotry or hate. However, countering hatred is not sufficient to create equality for the LGBTQ community. As a nation, we must act proactively to take the Supreme Court\u2019s same-sex marriage ruling one step further, in order to ensure that rights dovetailing with marriage, including parentage, are adequately addressed.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our hearts are filled wit [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[82,172,174,197],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lgbt","category-uncategorized","tag-equality","tag-orlando","tag-parentage","tag-same-sex"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacy-lawyer.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}