Tallahassee – The same-sex couples fighting Florida’s refusal to add both parents’ names to their children’s birth certificates are asking the court to immediately move forward and issue the proper paperwork.
Attorneys for Debbie and Kari Chin of St. Petersburg and Yadira Arenas and Alma Vazquez of Winter Haven filed a request for temporary injunction Oct. 16.
“Defendants’ discriminatory denial of equal birth certificates to Plaintiffs and their children … violates plaintiffs’ fundamental right to marry and to have their marriages treated equally and denies these families the privacy, dignity, legitimacy, security, support, and protections available to similarly-situated married different-sex parents and their children. There is no justification, let alone a constitutionally adequate one, for imposing these irreparable harms on the Plaintiffs’ families,” the filing reads.
The lawsuit was filed in August by the two couples mentioned, plus Cathy Pareto and Karla Arguello, who were lead plaintiffs in Florida’s marriage equality lawsuit, and the Equality Florida Institute. They’re represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and Florida attorneys Mary Meeks and Elizabeth Schwartz. Attorneys on behalf of the Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics filed a motion for clarification Aug. 13, essentially asking whether the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same sex marriage applies to vital statistics records and whether the existing gender-specific language somehow exempts the state from birth certificates.
“We are confident that the court will issue a ruling to protect our clients and all same sex parents throughout Florida by requiring the State to issue birth certificates to both parents, but we implore the State to do the right thing, immediately, to prevent further unnecessary harm to these families,” Meeks says.
Shannon Minter, NCLR’s legal director, says they’d been asking the Bureau of Vital Statistics to comply with the law for months before finally taking it to court.
According to Equality Florida, inaccurate birth certificates cause a host of problems for children by hindering their parents’ ability to take care of needs such as obtaining healthcare, making medical decisions, signing up for daycare, and enrolling in government programs and benefits. The lawsuit simply asks the Bureau of Vital Statistics to list both parents on birth certificates when the parents are a married same-sex couple, just as they do when the parents are a married heterosexual couple.
Meeks says the Judge entered a notation to the file that he would take the motion under advisement on Nov. 3 if the State had not filed a response by then.
