Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into California law earlier this month, paving the way for judges to craft and deliver additional parents for any child that comes before them. According to the bill’s sponsor, Democratic State Senator Mark Leno of San Francisco, this measure was needed to keep up with the changes in the modern California family.

Put another way, altering marriage to mean something other than one man and one woman, coupled with the on-going sexual revolution, triggers unique ways of looking at parenthood.

Many children have the benefit of stepparents or grandparents who function in parental roles, but the law does not address those scenarios. Senator Leno’s office provided the San Francisco Gate with three real-life examples from court cases to illustrate the “need” for this legislation:

  • A woman who broke up with her child’s biological father, then lived with a man who became the child’s main caretaker and who sought to establish a parental relationship after the couple separated.
  • A bisexual woman who lived with another woman but became pregnant with a man, with all three sharing parental responsibilities.
  • A lesbian who bore a child with a sperm donor, who helped her and her partner raise the child before the birth mother declared she was no longer a lesbian and moved to terminate the others’ parental rights.

Parenthood used to be determined by natural law, characterized by the biological pair who brought the baby into the world or the couple who decided to adopt. Under this new law, parenting is a bit more complicated. Augmenting the creation of artificial relationships, this law creates artificial parents.

More than anything else, the tragic examples supplied by Senator Leno demonstrate the adverse impact the deterioration of the traditional family has had and is continuing to have on children. In each situation, children are put at risk due to the instability and poor decisions of the adults in their lives.

But aside from the prospect of getting more birthday presents, children gain little from this legislation. That’s not the purpose of it. Rather, the law furthers the strident effort to normalize and accommodate relationships of choice.

In addition to the situations described by Senator Leno, this new parenting law is perfectly suited to affirm and usher in polyamory, relationships consisting of more than two people, like 2 men and 4 women, 5 men, 2 women, and 3 questioning, or any other imagined grouping. On the heels of the state sanctioning same-sex unions, and following the same playbook used in that campaign, those in polyamorous relationships are pursing the legalization of this type of “marriage.” And since they can now legally share parenthood, they must feel good about their chances.

Studies conclusively show that children do best in traditional households comprising of one father and one mother. Adding more Dads and/or Moms to the mix does not enhance the benefit, but takes it away. And that’s assuming these contrived relationships hold. What about the far more likely outcome, the break-up of this complex “family” generated by judicial edict, a familial unit bore out of the failure of adults to be monogamous in the first place? What happens to the children then?

Though this law is trumpeted as yet another victory for alternative lifestyles, as usual, the ones who will pay the price for this folly are the children involved.

Posted by Nate Kellum