Same-Sex Couples Struggle With Custody Issues

A lesbian couple is taking a custody battle to court, 10TV’s Glenn McEntyre reported on Tuesday.

Kelly Cipriani and her partner decided nine years ago to double the size of their household with the arrival of twin boys.

But two and a half years later, the couple broke up, and now their custody case is headed to trial, McEntyre reported.

“I was the one who wanted to carry the children,” Cipriani said. “I was the one who wanted to have the children.”

Cipriani was the legally-recognized parent because she carried the children.

Cipriani said that her ex-girlfriend saw the children sporadically until recently when she cut off the visits.

Last week, a Franklin County judge granted temporary shared custody.

“I was stunned,” Cipriani said. “I feel like my constitutional rights have been violated. I am a parent. I am the sole parent of them, and I am the only person on the birth certificate.”

She said that she was concerned that then court had given partial custody to a person she had not lived with for seven years and who she said she considered “a stranger,” McEntyre reported.

Family law attorney Tom Addesa, who is not involved in Cipriani’s case, said that cases like Cipriani’s are a sign of the times.

“In Ohio, if it’s two women, the woman that gives birth has superior rights over anyone else until a court decides otherwise,” Addesa said.

Addesa said that Ohio courts have been willing to grant parental rights to the non-biological parent if the legal parent acted in a way that made it obvious that he or she was intending to make that other person a co-parent.

Because the state does not legally recognize same-sex families, families are subject to the rulings of their local courts, McEntyre reported. 

“And in that sense, I think it’s unfair,” Addesa said. “It’s unfair to the children, and it creates different standards in different counties or different results at least.”

Cipriani said that she felt like she was a victim of the state not knowing how to handle situations like hers.

“I feel like I’m a guinea pig,” Cipriani said.

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