Heather really does have two mommies

Bret at Oregon Commentator (March 5), in a thoughtful post on the social effects of gay marriage, includes this comment: “If Oregonians decide through a vote to recognize the equal rights for all couples to marry, good; equal freedoms from government should be the goal for all citizens. But it would be absurd for the state’s Supremes to find that there are no genuine differences between a group that can naturally bear children and a group that cannot. There are those who would argue not all heterosexual couples can produce progeny, but that very small subset is created by a fluke of nature, whereas the latter must always rely the massive work of science and always require a third party.”

Certainly male couples can’t give birth to children, but both partners in a female SSM may be able to give birth (albeit with a man, or donor, somehow involved) and can “naturally bear children.” I recall an Oregon statute to the effect that a child born of a married couple during a period when they are not living apart is conclusively presumed to be the child of both, regardless of whom the actual father may be. I haven’t looked at the statute for some time, but I suspect that under that statute, a child born to Sally while she’s married to and living with Sue is under current Oregon law the daughter of both Sally and Sue, and where Sally got the Y chromosome isn’t relevant.