Despite rain and chilly weather, LGBTQ families, advocates and allies kicked off Pride month on June 1 with the Rally for Massachusetts Families outside the State House, calling on the legislature to promptly pass the Massachusetts Parentage Act (MPA) (S. 1133 / H. 1714), a bipartisan bill to ensure important legal protections for all children, including those with LGBTQ+ parents.
After a hearing last November, the bill is awaiting further action in the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
With the July 31 end of the current legislative session quickly approaching, speakers at the event, which was hosted by the Massachusetts Parentage Act Coalition, illuminated the issues confronting families in Massachusetts due to the Commonwealth’s outdated parentage laws and how passage of the MPA would address such problems.
Speakers included Kate Weldon LeBlanc, executive director Resolve New England; State Reps. Kay Khan (lead sponsor of the MPA) and Adam J. Scanlon; LGBTQ Caucus and Judiciary Committee member J. Shia, a de facto parent; Polly Crozier, GLAD senior staff attorney; Darmany Jimenez, youth activist and the teenage child of a de facto parent; Jordan Budd, executive director, COLAGE; Emily McGranachan, adult child of lesbian parents and director of corporate and foundation relations for Family Equality; and Owen James Nichols-Worley, teenage son of gay dads and the first child born in MA to have both same-sex parents listed on his birth certificate.
Based on the Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) 2017, a best-practice framework for ensuring the protection of the legal relationship between parents and children, the MPA would update state law to clarify who can be a parent and how to establish parentage. The MPA would add important protections for children born through assisted reproduction and surrogacy. The bill would also enable LGBTQ+ parents to establish parentage the same way other families do, including through a voluntary acknowledgement of parentage, and provide a clear standard for courts to resolve competing claims of parentage.
“I really hope we can get this done this year. There’s not much time left so we have to work really hard,” said Rep. Khan. “This is very important because relationships between children and parents are the core of so many rights and responsibilities.”
—From a Massachusetts Parentage Act Coalition press release
Click here for more on the Massachusetts Parentage Act. And learn more about the Massachusetts Parentage Act Coalition here.
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