# Lesbian Partner Ordered to Pay Child Support **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2002, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839 "2002-12-19T17:51:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/1 "2002-12-19T17:51:50Z")
[Former lesbian partner must pay child support](http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/12/19/lesbian.support.ap/index.html) > [@](#): > > HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) – The former lesbian partner of a woman who bore five children during their relationship must pay child support, a state Superior Court panel has ruled. > > The couple, identified only by initials in the three-judge panel’s opinion, lived together in Carlisle from the mid-1980s until 1997 and agreed to have children together through artificial insemination. > > The partner, identified as H.A.N., stayed at home and cared for the children while the mother returned to work in a civilian job for the Navy. H.A.N. did not legally adopt the children. > > After the couple split up, H.A.N. successfully sought custody of the children during summers and school breaks but argued that she should not have to pay child support. > > A Cumberland County Common Pleas judge ordered her to pay back and current child support, and the Superior Court upheld the order Tuesday after she appealed. > > “It is clear from the record that H.A.N. acted as a `co-parent’ with mother in all areas concerning the children’s conception, care and support,” Judge Joan Orie Melvin wrote for the court. Here’s what I don’t understand (and this may be more of a GQ). Suppose a woman gets divorced and remarried. And her new husband acts as a “father figure” to her children, but does not adopt them. Then they get divorced. Does he have to pay child support? And if not, what’s the difference here? Is it the fact that the mother role was planned before the child’s conception? Or the fact that they decided to consider her a “mother” as opposed to merely a mother figure? (The latter is particularly nebulous, IMHO) ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/2 "2002-12-19T18:00:25Z")
\ A friend raised a son with his estranged wife. He wants custody, but since he never officially adopted him, the process will be very involved. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/3 "2002-12-19T18:03:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\*what’s the difference here? \*\* The difference, I assume, would be one of pre-existing condition. Your hypothetical husband entered into a marriage with a woman who already had kids. Neither lesbian partner had children at the time their relationship started. The relevant sentence from the article (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > The former lesbian partner of a woman **who bore five children during their relationship** must pay child support, a state Superior Court panel has ruled. The children were conceived within the union, similar to if a heterosexual married couple adopted children. Keep in mind I’m not a lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/4 "2002-12-19T18:07:39Z")
**IR:** _Suppose a woman gets divorced and remarried. And her new husband acts as a “father figure” to her children, but does not adopt them. Then they get divorced. Does he have to pay child support?_ IANAL, but I believe that if he was supporting or helping to support the kids while they were married, and otherwise fulfilling a parental role, he may well be required to continue providing some support after the divorce. (And of course there was that notorious case where the supposed father of kids whose biological father was actually the supposed father’s wife’s lover, if you follow me, was required to go on paying child support even after he’d learned the kids weren’t his own offspring.) One can be considered to have “assumed parental responsibilities” even without legal parenthood status due to birth or adoption. (And why the heck would someone who **had** assumed such responsibilities **want** to abandon them just because the adult relationship dissolves? “I’m not going to live with your mommy anymore and therefore I no longer care about whether you need food or shoes”? 😕 What kind of jerks are these people?) ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/5 "2002-12-19T18:32:57Z")
Somewhere in a previous thread, a law was mentioned that (in certain US states?) if a married couple have a kid, and they split up, and the man does a DNA test and finds out the kid isn’t actually his, he still has to pay child support, because any children born in a marriage are “of that marriage” or something. I can’t say what would or should happen in your scenario. What interests me about the lesbians case you quoted isn’t the issue of it being an biologically unrelated parent being ordered to pay child support, but that H.A.N. was originally the stay-at-home parent, so wasn’t actually earning. Does she have a job now? Also that even though she sought and got considerable custody of the children, she didn’t want to pay. All very weird. ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/6 "2002-12-19T18:40:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Suppose a woman gets divorced and remarried. And her new husband acts as a “father figure” to her children, but does not adopt them. Then they get divorced. Does he have to pay child support? In California, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/7 "2002-12-19T19:03:23Z")
I think it’s an excellent step towards (I hate the term, but I’ll use it for its name recognition value) “gay marriage”. I’ll be surprised if this verdict isn’t used as a precedent very soon in a trial seeking acknowledgement of a legal union. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/8 "2002-12-19T21:04:53Z")
> [@](#): > > I think it’s an excellent step towards (I hate the term, but I’ll use it for its name recognition value) “gay marriage”. I’ll be surprised if this verdict isn’t used as a precedent very soon in a trial seeking acknowledgement of a legal union. Let’s hope so, because it’s pretty appalling to hear that same-sex relationships have all the responsibilities of marraige with none of the rights. ---
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/9 "2002-12-19T23:37:45Z")
sqweels: > [@](#): > > Let’s hope so, because it’s pretty appalling to hear that same-sex relationships have all the responsibilities of marraige with none of the rights. Huh? Getting child support is itself a right that is apparently being given in this case. The person getting the child support would consider it a right, the person paying would consider it a responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/10 "2002-12-22T01:02:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > IANAL, but I believe that if he was supporting or helping to support the kids while they were married, and otherwise fulfilling a parental role, he may well be required to continue providing some support after the divorce. (And of course there was that notorious case where the supposed father of kids whose biological father was actually the supposed father’s wife’s lover, if you follow me, was required to go on paying child support even after he’d learned the kids weren’t his own offspring.) One can be considered to have “assumed parental responsibilities” even without legal parenthood status due to birth or adoption. I don’t know – the examples I’ve encountered are in cases where for whatever reason someone has acquired the legal status of assumed actual parent, as opposed to merely fulfilling that role. E.g. the paternal assumption mentioned by **istara** (See also an (apparent) extreme example cited in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=141757)). > [@](#): > > (And why the heck would someone who **had** assumed such responsibilities **want** to abandon them just because the adult relationship dissolves? “I’m not going to live with your mommy anymore and therefore I no longer care about whether you need food or shoes”? 😕 What kind of jerks are these people?) Don’t know if I agree with you here. A relationship that is not biological can wax and wane. In particular, in a case where the person does not have custody it will probably wane in any event. It sounds harsh to say that “I no longer care about whether you need food or shoes”, but what it boils down to is that once I no longer have a close relationship, I care about as much as I care about others with whom I don’t have a close relationship. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sampiro \* > I think it’s an excellent step towards (I hate the term, but I’ll use it for its name recognition value) “gay marriage”. I’ll be surprised if this verdict isn’t used as a precedent very soon in a trial seeking acknowledgement of a legal union. I’m inclined to think this does not follow. If, as I assume, the same would apply to unmarried heterosexuals as well, one would have to say that the parental right here is not the result of a tie between the lesbian partner and the biological parent, but rather a direct parental relationship between the lesbian partner and the child. If so, the issue of gay marriage would be moot. OTOH, this would bring up all sorts of interesting scenarios. Suppose the two women were not lesbian partners, but were two sisters living together (or a mother and daughter). Could you declare the sister to be a de facto parent on the basis of here having had that type of relationship with the child? After all, the relationship of the adult to the child is ostensibly unaffected by the relationship of the adult to the other adult. For that matter, what about three people living together – are they all parents? This sort of brings home the difficulties you can encounter when you start declaring that B is the functional equivalent of A so let’s treat B as we do A. Because then C is the functional equivalent of B and so on. ---
**Author:** ![CastleAnthrax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@CastleAnthrax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CastleAnthrax)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/11 "2002-12-22T01:22:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\* A relationship that is not biological can wax and wane. In particular, in a case where the person does not have custody it will probably wane in any event. It sounds harsh to say that “I no longer care about whether you need food or shoes”, but what it boils down to is that once I no longer have a close relationship, I care about as much as I care about others with whom I don’t have a close relationship. > \*\* If you hold a baby and get up in the middle of the night to feed that baby and diaper him and put a cool cloth on his head because he has a fever and take him to see Santa and mark his height with a pencil on the bedroom doorjamb, he is YOUR KID, no matter whose uterus he started out in. I was adopted at birth and my mom and dad are my Mom and Dad, not the people who conceived and bore me. Unlike a romantic relationship that can indeed wane, a parent-child relationship, regardless of biology, is permanent in the normal human. I think it’s perfectly reasonable that when two parents split up, they should still split the cost of care for the kids. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/12 "2002-12-22T21:25:20Z")
Hm. What if there was a multiple relationship? Two women, one man, none married, both females bisexual, all together for years. Male and female 1 have a child, but female 2 does all of the things mentioned in **Henna’s** post above. Then, for whatever reason, female 2 leaves after, oh, five years. Should she be required to pay support? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lesbian-partner-ordered-to-pay-child-support/143839/13 "2002-12-22T21:32:22Z")
“You don’t divorce children” - line recalled from the movie _Clueless_