Best interests of the child requires recognition of both intending parents´ parenthood

Last May the Swiss Supreme Court, by a tiny majority of 3:2, refused to recognize the non-genetic intending parent of a surrogate child born in the USA. Of the two parents established by the lawful judgment of the competent Californian court, the Swiss Supreme Court allows just the genetic parent to be entered into the Swiss civil registry (Urteil 5A_748/2014). At the same time the Swiss recognized the US-judgment as far as it denies parenthood of the birth mother effecting that the child in Switzerland, different then in the US, has only one parent. 

Compulsory illegitimate children

Austrian children with two fathers or two mothers have to be compulsory illegitimate because their parents are not allowed to marry each other. Five such children, together with their parents, are now taking the federal government to the courts over their parents´marriage ban; to allow their parents to marry and themselves to become legitimate children as their peers with one father and one mother are. Tomorrow the Vienna Administrative Court will hear the first of these five cases.  

Already 45.000 support citizens initiative

Last Tuesday, 17 November 2015, federal parliament´s Committee for Petitions and Citizen Initiatives began dealing with citizen initiative "Ehe Gleich!". Unanimously the parliamentarians decided to request the Minister of Justice and the Minister for Family Affairs to submit their views on marriage equality until the Committee´s next meeting at the beginning of next year.

Bürgerinitiative: schon zehntausende für Ehe Gleich!
Trotz EGMR-Urteil: Entwurf des Justizministeres verhöhnt die Opfer
Antidiskriminierung: Hundsdorfer redet nicht mit uns


 

JUS AMANDI Ausgabe 3/2015 | JUS AMANDI Archiv

Winning the Freedom to Marry

The historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 26, 2015 paved the way for the freedom to marry nationally. Marriage licenses are now being issued across the United States. Evan Wolfson, Founder and President of Freedom to Marry, the campaign that won equal marriage rights in the U.S., will discuss his decades-long, hard-fought fight for the freedom to marry and the lessons for the work ahead.

Panel Discussion:
Marijana Grandits, Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award winner 2015; University of Vienna
Helmut Graupner, President of Rechtskomitee LAMBDA (RKL), Austria’s LGBT-rights-organization; spokesperson of the citizens' initiative Ehe Gleich!
Evan Wolfson, Founder and President of Freedom to Marry
Moderated by Robert Greenan, U.S. Embassy Vienna