State of Confusion: A Spiraling Look into Same-Sex Parentage Rights

Before looking into this extremely informative article written by Washington Monthly correspondent Alison Gash, I had no idea just how complicated parenting for same-sex couples could be. In this article, Gash breaks down the story of Michelle and Brittany Conover, a couple who had a child together (the child is biologically Brittany's bot not biologically Michelle's) but then filed for divorce after their child was born. The state, however, did not grant Michelle legal access to her own child on account of the fact that Michelle was not "technically" the biological mother of her son since Brittany was the one to carry him.

Gash did a great job with summarizing a topic that has many complex layers to it and the overall article was very informative. Her intended audience is most likely a liberal one, as conservatives rarely display interest in a topic such as this one. Especially since this article goes very in-depth in the topic of parental legality, I doubt that any Republican, GOP member, or generally conservative person would give the time of day to an article based on anything to do with same-sex couples. The article also did a fantastic job of straying from biases: the information given was strictly straight-forward, and even her opinions were presented with subtlety. I especially agreed with her when she mentions at the end that children of same-sex couples are even more likely to be subjected to a rocky household without the government's support, and the government should be extremely supportive in situations like this. Events like this one show that marriage equality was a wonderful thing to happen to this country but we've still got a very long way to go in regard to all-encompassing equality.

The only gripe I have with this article is that it tends to get a little confusing in parts, especially when breaking down the state laws regarding what constitutes a legal parent of a child. A few paragraphs were also kind of redundant when talking about the specific situation of Michelle and Brittany, but overall I feel like that helped solidify the information.

Situations like Michelle and Brittany's make me so angry because no one should be subjected to treatment like that, whether it's by way of the state or way of morals. As I previously stated, I had no idea that same-sex couples endured messes like this one when deciding custody of a child, and this article did a great job of presenting me with information I had no clue about. I would love to look more into this issue in the future.