Child Rights Activist Sounds Alarm as New Book Celebrates 3-Man 'Throuple' Named Children's Legal Parents
Even as three men who are listed as the legal parents of two children born to surrogate mothers bask in the glow of their fame, one commentator said the real issue is being overlooked.
Ian Jenkins, who authored a book titled “Three Dads and a Baby” based upon the experience of having three gay men legally adopt a child, joined the other two members of the “throuple,” Alan Mayfield and Jeremy Allen Hodges, recently for a stint on Australia’s “Morning Show.”
They were making a publicity stop for the book, which goes on sale March 9.
The men were named the legal parents to a first child, a girl named Piper, in 2017. They are now also the legal parents of a boy, Parker. The children are half-siblings, carried by a surrogate mother from embryos donated by a friend who fertilized her eggs through in vitro fertilization, according to HufPost.
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“We weren’t sure that we could have all three of us on the birth certificate so it became a court process,” Mayfield said during the Feb. 16 interview, according to The Christian Post.
“It was a pretty interesting, tense courtroom scene where at first it seemed we were not going to be granted that and we asked to speak in court and plead our viewpoint and the judge ultimately changed her mind and granted us legal parentage for our child before she was born,” he said.
The men claim there is a valid legal argument at stake.
“If our child, God forbid, was to end up in the hospital, one of the parents might not be able to go visit them,” Hodges said.
“It was really important to be recognized as the family that we are, and, thankfully, we live in California, which is a state that, after some teeth pulling and fighting, actually did then allow us to do that, so that was amazing,” he said.
But Katy Faust, founder of the children’s rights organization Them Before Us, said the real issue should be the children, not the men who acquired legal rights to be named parents.
“people should not be surprised by the newest manifestation of “modern family,” Faust asserted, as it was “the inevitable result of centering all legal and cultural conversations about family around the desires of adults.”https://t.co/s6VYQF6ubK
— Katy Faust (@Advo_Katy) February 24, 2021
“Of course the real victims are the two motherless children who were intentionally separated from the woman who provided half of their genetic identity, the woman to whom they bonded during their first 9 1/2 months of life, and who will be starved of the daily maternal love that all children crave,” Faust said, according to The Christian Post.
Others agreed.
This is madness. https://t.co/7OIdhlI1zj
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) February 28, 2021
For Christians who build their worldview on the bible (God’s infallible Word) there is only one family, the family that God created when he made the first man & woman (male & female Genesis 1:27)–the first marriage, (one man & one woman): “Therefore… https://t.co/cwkmoIn9oq
— Ken Ham (@aigkenham) February 26, 2021
Lords help us! California judge names homosexual male “throuple” as legal parents of 2 children. https://t.co/C9rn1zvAat via @DisrnNews
— Melissa Tate (@TheRightMelissa) February 28, 2021
Faust said the “throuple” is “the inevitable result of centering all legal and cultural conversations about family around the desires of adults.”
“That slippery slope of ‘if the adults are happy the children will be happy’ which began with no-fault divorce, normalized single mothers by choice, insisted gender is irrelevant to parenting during the gay marriage debate, is now championing male throuples raising motherless children,” she said.
“Until we recognize that children have a natural and fundamental right to be known and loved by both their mother and father, you can expect more wild variations of the modern family, as children become the acceptable sacrifice on the pyre of adult desires,” she said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
