As Governor Romney ordered birth certificates of children born to gay parents to be defaced

[Bjorn Against]

Romney rejected new birth certificates for gay parents
By Murray Waas | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT OCTOBER 25, 2012

It seemed like a minor adjustment. To comply with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2003, the state Registry of Vital Records and Statistics said it needed to revise its birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The box for “father” would be relabeled “father or second parent,’’ reflecting the new law.

But to then-Governor Mitt Romney, who opposed child-rearing by gay couples, the proposal symbolized unacceptable changes in traditional family structures.

He rejected the Registry of Vital Records plan and insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents. Only after winning approval from Romney’s lawyers could hospital officials and town clerks across the state be permitted to cross out by hand the word “father’’ on individual birth certificates, and then write in “second parent,’’ in ink.

snip

Crossouts and handwritten alterations constituted “violations of existing statutes’’ and harmed “the integrity of the vital record-keeping system,’’ the deputy general counsel of the department, Peggy Wiesenberg, warned in a confidential Dec. 13, 2004, memo to Mark Nielsen, Romney’s general counsel.

http://bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/10/24/mitt-romney-overruled-state-agency-and-rejected-new-birth-certificates-for-children-born-gay-parents/TqOHBb99V98H6nGQqUQrjO/story.html

Of all the stories I have heard about Romney I think this one sickens me the most. I just can't understand how a person could think it is OK to scribble out the word father on a baby's birth certificate that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives in order to send them a message that their parents are not equal to other parents.

[Th1onein]

1. He's a worse crackpot than Sarah Palin, it looks like.

Geez. What an asshat. I don't like the idea of his having his staff personally review each and every birth certificate. Talk about authoritarian. God, this man needs to go back to Utah and stay there.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. I'm sorry, but...

a birth certificate is as much as anything else a health record. Having the names of both birth parents on the actual birth certificate is sensible, especially in such cases where there may be some need to trace common genetic disease in multiple children of the same sperm donor (or to prevent said children from marrying as adults, because...incest). There is biologically no such thing as "a child born to a same-sex couple". I don't see an issue at all with same-sex couples being issued an amended certificate of birth that lists them as parents, as is done for adopted children, but I think that the underlying record should also be accurate.

[Bjorn Against]

3. There is absolutely no excuse for hand written crossouts, as the article shows it is illegal

I could totally understand if this was purely about having the biological parents listed, but to target the children of same sex couples and then scribbling out the word father with a pen? That is totally unacceptable.

[undeterred]

4. There are medical documents and legal documents

And I think this one serves both purposes. When they ask the mother for the fathers name, they mean the biological father of the child. So I think that should be required on the birth certificate as part of the record of birth because the child, and the doctor should know that information to take care of the child. Acknowledging that biological reality should not require excluding the parenthood of the couple who are the parents of the child, whether they are two men or two women or whatever.

[TheDebbieDee]

5. How phuckin' petty this asshole is!

I can't believe anybody would go to such lengths to disrepect babies and their proud parents.