LGBT activists are charging ahead faster than the law. The Supreme Court ruling banishing prohibitions on gay marriage was issued less than three years ago. The Justice Department is still trying to work out the kinks within the new policy.
A gay couple brought the issue to the forefront of society this week by filing a lawsuit against the government. One of the couple’s twin boys was granted U.S. citizenship, the other was not.
The adorable little boys are loved by the same parents, share the same egg donor mother, and were brought to term by the same surrogate, but it doesn’t matter. Genetics are king. One child has the DNA of LA native Andrew Dvash-Banks. The other child shares genes with Andrew’s Israeli husband Elad.
“I started crying,” Andrew recounted, describing how he felt when he learned that the government only considered one of his sons to be American.
“These are twins, how can you differentiate between them? They were born minutes apart.”
“What we’re trying to do is pursue justice for Ethan,” Elad added, “and correct a wrong that the State Department is continuing to pursue that might affect other couples.”
Baby Ethan doesn’t have a biological parent with American heritage, and he was born on Canadian, not American, soil. However, the Dvash-Banks are married and children born in wedlock are assumed to belong both partners.
“If a mother and father walk into a consulate and have a marriage certificate and birth certificate, they’re never asked any questions about the biology of the child,” Aaron Morris, executive director of Immigration Equality, said.
“But the converse is also true and every same-sex couple will be asked that.”
The couple’s lawyers argue that children born to an American citizen abroad are automatically U.S. citizens, regardless of the other parent’s status.
A similar case was filed against the government Monday.
“The other case filed Monday involves two women,” the Daily Mail notes, “one from the U.S., and one from Italy, who met in New York, wed in London and each gave birth to a son. The State Department didn’t recognize the couple’s marriage… and only granted citizenship to the boy whose biological mother was born and raised in the U.S.”
(Source: Daily Mail)