By Maria Padhila
While we were all being distracted by the imminent government shutdown, interesting things happened! And this time there were some good things!
If you’re a typical Planet Waves reader (if there is such a thing), you’ve gotten used to thinking of everything that happens as an attempted distraction from something more important that you’re not supposed to be paying attention to (see Trans-Pacific Partnership).
But this time, it was a law in California that could have interesting results for poly families and for families of all kinds. Governor Jerry Brown of California signed a bill permitting a child to have more than two parents. There’s not another law like it in any state. Occasionally, according to gay and lesbian family law expert Nancy Polikioff, there can be a third-parent adoption in special cases, but this is the first time there has been a flat-out law permitting it. In her blog, “Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, Polikoff writes:
This statutory authorization, however, is most likely to impact heterosexuals, given how much divorce and remarriage there is. The provision will mean that if both the custodial and the noncustodial parent agree, then the custodial parent’s new husband will be able to adopt the child without terminating the rights of the noncustodial parent. I have been advocating such a possibility for years, but this is the first law explicitly sanctioning such arrangements. The divorce rate of second marriages is at least as high as that of first marriages, which means that down the road we will be looking at multiple parent custody and visitation arrangements on a regular basis.
That could be a little sad. But it beats the alternative, of a child having to leave behind someone who was important to her. Polikoff goes on to write: