A beautiful white wedding gown, flowers, family, friends, a husband that vows to love you unconditionally, and the future prospect of a healthy and happy family. This is, more or less, societies picture perfect wedding. But what happens when there are 2 beautiful white wedding gowns, or perhaps 2 tuxedo's instead?.
Over the year's, societies concept of what constitutes a family has changed, or at least adapted. Same sex marriages have become more acceptable, although many barriers still stand. The issue of same sex partners raising children is becoming more out in the open, although it is still being debated upon and many families are being torn due to these ongoing debates.
Canada, over the last couple of years, has made an attempt of becoming one of the most gay-positive nations today. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada ordered the Alberta government to grant homosexuals special protection under the province's human rights law (Smith, Max, B.C. Report Magazine, 1999). In March of 1999 the right to private adoption of same-sex partners was extended and in the same year the Supreme Court dismissed the heterosexual definition of spouse under Ontario's Family Law Act (Smith, Max, B.C. Report Magazine, 1999). .
Custody and access laws pertaining to same-sex partners and their children have brought forth a lot of homophobia. Over the years, positive changes have slowly been made- "lesbian and gay men are increasingly able to obtain equal parenting rights, whether as a result of seeking custody and access, by means of adoption, or through alternative insemination procedures." (Fisher, John, Gay Men, Lesbians and the Law, March 1999) Regardless of the progress that is slowly being made, there are still many problems that remain.
As it stands so far, British Columbia is the only province that has passed legislation to provide for the adoption of a same-sex partner's biological child. According to a paper by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, "Without legal acknowledgement of the relationship between the child and the non-biological parent, the latter may not even be able to take the child out of school to go to the dentist, authorize a field trip, or consent to medical treatment.
