Judge keeps it all in the family

Local polyamorous group applauds decision on three-parent family

A local support group for people who identify as polyamorous is applauding a recent Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court decision declaring two men the fathers of a oneyear-old boy.

“Amazing!!! So thrilled to see our province as a pioneer in the field of polyamory!” wrote the administrators of a social media page for Polyamory/non-monogamy Support Group NL. “And a huge congrats to the parents! All the best!”

Justice Robert Fowler of the Supreme Court’s Family Court division has ruled in favour of a family seeking to have three people named as parents on the baby’s birth certificate. Amendments to the Vital Statistics Act will follow, Fowler said.

Two men and their female partner, the baby’s mother, sought to be legally recognized as the child’s parents, but were denied by Servicenl, since legislation didn’t allow more than two parents on a child’s birth certificate. A lawyer for the province’s attorney general made the same argument in court.

Fowler said the family, which has been together for three years, is a loving and stable one, albeit outside the traditional family model, and the child has a safe and nurturing home life. It’s not known which of the men is the biological father, Fowler noted, and they share equal probability of paternity.

Fowler quoted from a transcript from the House of Assembly in July 1988, when then-justice minister Lynn Verge introduced the Children’s Law Act, saying the government of the day wanted to bring about equal status for children born inside and outside marriage, but had not considered the “now complex family relationships that are common and accepted in our society.”

The judge said the child’s best interest was the main concern, and he found nothing to suggest the three-parents family structure went against this. To deny the child two fathers would not be in his best interest, Fowler said.

“Society is continuously changing and family structures are changing with it,” Fowler wrote. “This must be recognized as a reality and not as a detriment to the best interests of the child.”

While polygamy, which involves two or more marriages, is illegal in Canada, polyamorous relationships that don’t involve marriage are not.

Fowler gave his decision in April, though it was released publicly just this week.

Others who posted public comments on the local polyamory/non-monogamy site shared the organization’s applause.

“Deadly, sure,” wrote one. “It takes a village to raise a child and as a parent I can tell you if I had two other people to help out some days it would be a huge relief.”