Despite the ethical dilemma, I watch a lot of lesbian family vloggers on YouTube. Even when in happy marriages, the mother who did not give birth usually adopts the child as soon as possible, to protect her parental rights. It’s easy to trust the woman you’re married to. You might even hope that the marriage itself protects your parental status if divorce were to occur. That is probably what Kris Williams thought, before the biological mother, Rebekah Wilson, ran off with their child and the sperm donor.
It gets worse. Not only did Kris Williams feel the betrayal of her estranged wife moving in with the sperm donor, who they had found on a donor site and believed was gay, soon after they separated, but an Oklahoma court rejected Williams’ petition of custody over the son she raised for two years. She now has no access or rights over her son.
Williams and Wilson began dating in 2014. The couple started looking for sperm donors in 2018. They found Harlan Vaughn through the website Known Donor Registry and connected with him on Facebook.
The pair thought Vaughn was gay because he had a boyfriend at the time. Williams said she hoped Vaughn could be a “guncle” (gay uncle) to her son. In September 2018, Wilson entered a “Known Sperm Donor Agreement” with Vaughn, before the nonmedical insemination occurred that December.
Williams and Wilson were married in June 2019, before Wilson gave birth that August. “I felt extremely safe,” Williams said.
Soon after the child’s second birthday, in October 2021, Vaughn moved to Oklahoma City and started seeing the child more. The next month, Wilson took the boy and moved in with Vaughn. Wilson and Vaughn have been raising the child together and have since had a second biological child.
“I couldn’t have guessed in a million years that it would be two people in our community that were going to take these steps, and especially one that I very much was in love with,” Williams explained.
Williams was listed on the boy’s birth certificate when he was born in 2019. However, Oklahoma County District Judge Lynne McGuire argued that Williams could not claim parentage rights because Oklahoma’s parentage act predates the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state.
“[The act] does not take into account same-sex marriage, and there is no presumption that the wife of the mother is automatically presumed the parent of a child born during the marriage,” McGuire ruled.
Yes, even being on a birth certificate is not enough proof you are a parent. McGuire argued that adopting the child was an avenue open to Williams, which would have cemented her parental status.
“The reality is that the law provides a legal remedy available to Williams,” McGuire wrote. “She knowingly chose not to pursue it.”
Douglas NeJaime, a professor of family law at Yale Law School, disagrees with McGuire’s ruling. “It’s not like you’re looking at two statutes,” NeJaime said, referring to McGuire’s comparison between the state’s parental act and the Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. “You’re looking at a statute and a constitutional precedent that now tells you, ‘You have to apply that statute consistent with this constitutional precedent.’”
In 2015, Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, entitled same-sex couples to “civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.”
In 2017, the high court ruled, in Pavan v. Smith, that U.S. states must extend equal treatment to same-sex parents, meaning two-parent birth certificates for children born to same-sex spouses should ensure that both parents are recognized.
These rulings did not happen yesterday. Over years, they have helped form a legal standard for how the U.S. court system approaches and treats same-sex couples.
Some legal experts, like Shannon Minter, an attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, believe the Obergefell ruling alone is enough to guarantee same-sex couples the same parental rights as heterosexuals. But, considering Pavan v. Smith, this is especially true if both of their names are on the child’s birth certificate.
“It’s a reminder for same-sex couples that we do continue to live in a legal system and a society that is not always fair and doesn’t always follow the law,” Minter said. “Those couples may face unfair and even unlawful obstacles to having their parental rights secured and protected, and that’s just a reality.”
Vaughn issued a statement on behalf of himself and Wilson: “We remain focused exclusively on our child’s protection and well-being. We are grateful for the court’s validation.”
