Let my two moms marry! On Stonewall anniversary, kids of gay parents join same-sex marriage fight

June 27, 2009 by savvyplanners.com

BY Samuel Goldsmith DAILY NEWS WRITER

From left to right, Mary Jo Kennedy, Aliya Shain and Jo-Ann Shain. Photo NY Daily News

Children of gay parents say it’s time to let Heather’s two mommies get married.

“I feel like it’s my right to have two parents who are married,” said 15-year-old Marilyn Carlin of Brooklyn, who was born to lesbian moms Jane and Martha.

As thousands ready to march down Fifth Ave. Sunday for gay rights – marking the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riot – children from same-sex households say marriage equality is not just for the adults who want to marry, it’s also for the kids.

“It would make me feel safer if my parents were married,” said Marilyn, who just finished her freshman year at the Berkeley Carroll school in Park Slope.

Marilyn, who wasn’t even born yet in 1989, when the book “Heather Has Two Mommies,” triggered a national controversy, says she worries about what would happen if her biological mother was in an accident.

“We wouldn’t have the same legal rights that straight couples do even though they’ve been together for like 30 years.” Many children of gay couples are furious and dismayed that the state’s gay marriage bill, which has passed the Assembly and is backed by Gov. Paterson, is languishing in the Senate. Marilyn’s biological mother, Martha, was artificially inseminated by an anonymous sperm donor.

Martha’s partner went through the same process nine years earlier and gave birth to a son, Hunter Walker, now 24. “I’ve turned out very well and my brother has turned out very well and my parents are 99% of the reason for it,” Marilyn said.

The advocacy group Child Welfare Information Gateway says 8 million to 10 million children are being raised in same sex families. The laws vary from state to state, and in some cases city to city, about what custodial rights these families have.

“The standing of a marriage helps bridge the gap in our legal, social and moral systems,” said Ron Zacchi, executive director of Marriage Equality New York. “Without it, the couple is often viewed as legal strangers.”

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