Gay Dads Australia

The Tasmanian Attorney-General is moving to officially recognise same-sex parents.

Victoria passed laws late last year allowing IVF babies to have two legally recognised mothers and the Tasmanian Government had a similar move blocked in the Upper House six years ago.

Tasmania’s Gay and Lesbian rights group says joint motherhood is now recognised in most states and territories and Tasmania should do the same.

The Attorney-General Lara Giddings has told State Parliament the change would remove discrimination and protect children in same-sex relationships.

"As the law stands the birth-mother is registered as the mother and the partner has no rights at law" said Ms Giddings.

"This bill will rectify that situation and put a same-sex partner in the same position as a male partner who has agreed to their partner becoming pregnant through ART."

The Liberals have been granted a conscience vote.

The Shadow Attorney-General Michael Hodgman said the bill is misguided.

"Here you have a situation where the two parents are of the same gender and with respect that is against the law of nature and legally an impossibility to me," said Mr Hodgman.

The Liberals’ Rene Hidding and Brett Whiteley will also oppose the bill.

Mr Hidding said it is a corruption of the meaning of parenthood.

[Link: Original Article]

SAME sex couples in Queensland will be allowed to become parents through altruistic surrogacy, Premier Anna Bligh has told parliament.

Ms Bligh this morning announced her government would legalise altruistic surrogacy for all Queenslanders, including same sex couples.

Queensland is one of the few jurisdictions where altrusitic surrogacy – where no money changes hands – remains illegal.

Miss Bligh told parliament the new laws would ensure children born through surrogacy would have the same rights as every child.

“We will do this because each and every Queenslander who wants to be a parent should be allowed the opportunity to do so,” Ms Bligh said.
“Anyone who is unable to conceive a baby but who wants to become a parent should know the joy of bringing a child into the world, providing them with life lessons, shaping their future and guiding them into adulthood.”

"At the end of the day, we want every child to be raised in a nurturing environment," she said.

Everyone … should be afforded the privileges of parenthood: Bligh (Reuters: Robert Galbraith)

The Queensland Government says same-sex couples will be included in changes to the state’s surrogacy laws.

Premier Anna Bligh has previously announced that altruistic surrogacy will be decriminalised, although commercial surrogacy will remain illegal.

Ms Bligh has told Parliament the new laws will be in place by the end of the year.

"I can advise the House that same-sex parents will be included among those who will be affected by the decriminalisation of surrogacy, because everyone – regardless of their sexual status or their gender – should be afforded the privileges of parenthood," she said.

What: Gay Dads NSW – Monthly Social Dinner

When: 3 August 2009 – 7.00pm – 10.00pm

Where: The Bank Hotel’s Thai Restaurant, Downstairs 324 King Street Newtown An informal regular gathering for all gay guys who have children or plan on becoming parents.

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ABOUT 36 kilometres from Melbourne’s CBD, Trevor Elwell and Peter West have fulfilled many of their Australian dreams. They have a mortgage, a station wagon and a deck where they can barbecue to their hearts’ content come summer.

And then there are the 11-week-old twins, Evelyn and Gaia — who are accompanied by the waft of soiled nappies this winter afternoon.

‘‘Who’s got the crappy nappy?’’ coos Mr West (it’s Evelyn). He is solicitous — and inured to the scent — perhaps only as a newly minted parent can be. But this is a nuclear family with a strictly 21st-century edge. The family that resides in this cul de sac in Wyndham Vale consists of three cats, two babies — and two dads, who have become standard bearers for gay fatherhood.

Mr Elwell, 41, and Mr West, 40, who revealed their plans to become fathers in The Age earlier this year, are now bona fide national celebrities after the TV program Sixty Minutes followed their path to parenting via commercial surrogacy in India.

The program, which attracted 1.3 million viewers, made them instantly famous when they landed in Melbourne with their new cross-cultural bubs in May.

Watch Video here

Read more…

Victorian gay and lesbian rights groups have urged the Brumby Government to move on same-sex adoption, claiming the state is now lagging on the issue.

The calls follow the release of a NSW report last week recommending the state amend its Adoption Act to allow same-sex couples to adopt.

Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby spokesman Anthony Bendall said he feared the issue may be buried by the Brumby Government.

“There is a danger, particularly when it does not really appear to be on the agenda in a solid sense in Victoria, that Victoria is lagging behind the other jurisdictions,” he said.

“With the national process, you’ve got to get agreement from all the jurisdictions which can be quite difficult to do. So while it would be desirable for a national approach, if that’s not achievable we still think Victoria should do the right thing and have quality within its laws.”

Read more…

Politicians from both major parties have vowed to fight proposed changes to NSW adoption laws that would see same-sex couples able to adopt.

The NSW Law and Justice Committee last week released their findings from the same-sex adoption inquiry, urging the government to allow adoption for same-sex couples.

The committee also recommended faith-based adoption agencies be allowed to refuse same-sex couples, but be obliged to refer them to services that could assist them.

Endorsed by a narrow margin of four votes to three, the Committee remained divided over the issue even as they announced its release.

The Coalition’s David Clarke and Labor’s Greg Donnelly, who sat on the committee, have indicated they would be advising their parties to block any reforms.

“I don’t think there is any mandate for the Government to act in this report and I don’t think it is in the best interest of the children,” Clarke said.

Read more…

The NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby welcomes the recommendations to remove discrimination against same-sex couples and their children made by the recent NSW Parliament Law and Justice Committee, but now urge the GLBT community to take action to ensure the reforms are implemented.

The GLRL will soon be meeting with key members of the NSW Parliament to discuss the reforms. The GLRL is calling upon community members to provide their own personalised stories through our website, so as to aid us with our lobbying efforts when meeting with various members of parliament during the campaign.

GLRL Co-Convenor Benjamin Keats said, “It is important that members of the NSW Parliament hear about the personal impact of discrimination from same-sex couples and their children. We know from our previous law reform work that personal stories make a difference.”

To take action, please visit the NSW GLRL website (www.glrl.org.au) and simply enter your details and personal story or opinion. The letter is automatically generated and sent the Premier and Minister for Community Services.

“It is clear that there is widespread support in the community for equality. There is no valid reason for the NSW Government not to act swiftly to remove this last area of direct discrimination against same-sex couples in NSW law,” concluded Emily Gray, GLRL Co-Convenor.

Using the GLRL website the community can easily make their voices heard to pressure the NSW Government to delver on adoption reform in 2009

Laws should be altered to allow same-sex couples to adopt in NSW because it’s in the best interests of children, a parliamentary inquiry has found.

The majority of a six-person upper house committee which examined same-sex adoption has recommended amendments be made to definitions of "couple" and "de facto relationship" in the Adoption Act 2000.

Committee chair, Labor’s Christine Robertson, said same sex-parents should be able to be assessed on the same terms as anyone else on whether they were suitable to adopt a child.

She said the committee found reforming the laws to allow same-sex couples to adopt would "ensure the best interests of children" are met by NSW’s adoption laws.

This was because it would broaden the pool of applications from which the most appropriate parents for a child were selected.

It would also allow those children currently in foster care with same-sex couples to be adopted.

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My name is Leanne and I’m in a same sex relationship. I have been with my partner for over 11 years and we decided early in our relationship that we wanted children.

My partner and I are the proud parents of a 3-year-old son who was conceived via IVF with a known donor. I am ‘mummy’ and my partner is ‘Omi’, short for other mummy.  Our Donor, ‘donor sperm dad’, is a close friend who is happily married. It was his wife who actually volunteered him for the job!

His wife has 5 grown children from a previous marriage, but our donor has no biological children of his own. We wanted a known donor for a few reasons. The main one, so our future children would know their father and where they came from.

This was a cause for a few people to voice their opinions and ‘what ifs’. Little did we know, many people had many opinions on “people like us” having children.

Read more…

What: Gay Dads Victoria – Discussion: Your child’s Physical Health and Development

When: 14 July 2009 – 6.00pm to 7.30pm

Where: Drummond Street Relationship Centre 195 Drummond St Carlton, VIC 3053, Australia

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Katherine Eastaughffe and Una Harkin are lesbians.

They’re also mothers, to six-month-old Daniel, whom Katherine gave birth to after undergoing fertility treatment.

The Queensland Government has no problem with lesbians using IVF to have children.

Neither do they have a problem with taking on Katherine and Una as registered foster carers.

But they draw the line at gay adoption, meaning Una cannot be legally recognised as one of Daniel’s parents.

The Bligh Government’s refusal to consider same sex adoption is being used as part of a renewed push for federal laws preventing discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Read more…

Rachel Cook discusses the delays for accessing IVF to same-sex couples – a delay of up to 5 months.

Delays in police checks will mean that same-sex couples requiring IVF treatment could be waiting five months.

Lesbians and single women gained access to IVF last December when the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Bill was passed. However the bill also introduced police checks as part of the screening process for prospective IVF recipients.

The checks are designed to ensure that people seeking fertility treatment are “fit to parent”, having no history of violence or sexual assault.

As reported in the Herald Sun last week, a doctor from Melbourne IVF has voiced his concerns that the government has failed to ensure the infrastructure is in place to cope with high numbers of police checks.

Read more…

Gay Dads Australia is experimenting with ways of communicating with members and potential members.  We have a twitter account and and rss feed.  We now have a “Gay Dads Australia – Surrogacy Toolbar” for the Firefox, IE and Safari(WIN) browsers. 

It is only in it’s infant stages so far but has links to known surrogacy agencies that Gay Dads in OZ have used, links to GDA news, Link to the GDA website, Link to the Surrogacy Manual and a inbuilt radio (hopefully) tuned to JOY 94.9.

You can download it here.

In this weeks edition of MCV [Melbourne] Gay Dad James talks about wanting to establish a Breast Milk bank in Australia for Gay Dads.

A group of gay men lobbying for a breast milk bank? The times they are a-changing, reports Andrew Shaw.

Being a father isn’t easy, even when your child’s mother is on the scene. But what happens when two dads get together and decide they want a kid? The answer is a financial, emotional and medical obstacle course that requires the stamina of an Olympic athlete to endure.

A Melbourne group that first met late last year hopes to take some of the difficulty out of the 1001 decisions that need to be made on the way to dual fatherhood. The Meeting Place is where gay dads who have, want to have, or have had kids can find information about parenting. You don’t have to have a newborn, you may have brought up yours already and want to pass on your knowledge. You don’t even have to have a child – just the desire to be a gay dad.

Read more…

We have added a new feature to the Gay Dads Australia website.  You can now listen to any of the news postings simply by clicking on the link at the end of the post called “Listen to this post”.  Indeed, you will be able to listen to this post by clicking the link below.  You can also download the file as an MP3 file and put it on your music player to listen at any time. 

You can also subscribe to this via as a PodCast by clicking on the icon below or paste the PodCast URL in the “Subscribe to Podcast” section of a program like iTunes.

The Rainbow Families Council in Victoria has just announced that the next Rainbow Families Conference will be held on Saturday 27 February 2010 in Melbourne.  They are currently requesting people suggest topics for workshops, presentations and special sessions and have a “Conference Suggestion Form” which you can complete to help shape the program for the Conference.  It is a great opportunity for Gay Dads to have a say and help the conference cater to the various needs of Gay Dads and Gay Dads to be. Whether it be something on Surrogacy, Fostering, Co-Parenting, Known Donors or something more general like child care issues or dealing with CentreLink.

To find our more about the Rainbow Families Council visit their website or participate in their survey.

[Link: Rainbow Families Council]

The Rainbow Families Council (in Victoria) has just published their first newsletter for 2009.  One of the matters in the newsletter is the funding that they have received from a local council relating to inclusiveness of “rainbow families”. A great initiative.  I am reproducing the announcement below.

The Rainbow Families Council received funding from the City of Darebin Community Grants round 2008/2009 to develop a new resource to assist early childcare services (i.e.Maternal & Child Health, Kindergartens, Child Care Centres) become more inclusive of same sex parented families.

We are seeking your ideas, personal stories and experiences to assist us in developing this new resource. The new resource may include an online booklet, posters, stickers; fact sheets… the ideas are endless.

Read more…

What: Gay Dads Victoria – Discussion: Your child’s Physical Health and Development

When: 14 July 2009 – 6.00pm to 7.30pm

Where: Drummond Street Relationship Centre 195 Drummond St Carlton, VIC 3053, Australia

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