This Case Reads Like A Hypothetical Used In Law School

There are so many conflicting questions here that have to be teased out, and some of them have obvious First Amendment issues (the religious question, for example). Think of this as Heather Has Two Mommies Who Hate Each Other, And A Daddy, Who Lives Overseas, And They Can't Agree on Religious Instruction:

The Supreme Court refused Monday to block a gay woman from seeking parental rights to a child she had helped raise with her partner.

Justices could have used the case to clarify the rights of gays in child custody disputes stemming from nontraditional families.

They declined, without comment, to disturb a ruling of Washington state's highest court that said Sue Ellen Carvin could pursue ties to the girl as a "de facto parent." The girl is now 11.

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Lawyers for the girl's biological mother, Page Britain, told justices that the state court decision in this case and others around the country "pave the way for children to have an unlimited and ever- changing number of parents."

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Carvin and Britain had lived together for five years before they decided to become parents. Britain was artificially inseminated and gave birth in 1995 to the daughter, known as L.B. in court papers. The girl called Carvin "Mama" and Britain "Mommy."

The couple broke up in 2001 and the following year, when the girl was 7, Carvin was barred from seeing the girl. After Carvin went to court, Britain married the sperm donor. Justices were told that the father lives in Thailand.

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The case paints a nasty battle between the two women. Britain says she wanted to have the girl baptized in a Catholic church and that her former partner wanted to take L.B. to a Buddhist temple.

Carvin contends she was the active parent.

And this legal case from Britain is just very, very sad:

A transsexual whose 17-year marriage to an heiress was nullified when the wife discovered her husband was a woman is not legally a "parent" of her 14-year-old daughter born from donor sperm, the Court of Appeal ruled today.

The female-to-male transsexual, referred to in court as Mr J, is now in law a man under the 2004 Gender Recognition Act and can lawfully marry a woman if he wishes.

But three appeal judges held that, because at the time of his "marriage" to Mrs C in 1977 he was still a woman, he had no parental rights.

The law required that when a woman conceived and gave birth through artificial insemination by donor (AID), the other party to the marriage must be a man in order to qualify as a parent, the judges said.

Mr J was still a woman when the child was conceived by AID in 1991 and, since there was no legal marriage, he could not be "a party" to it.

Mr J, born with gender dysmorphia, underwent hormone treatment and had breasts removed before, at the age of 30, he met and married Mrs C, then aged 20 and from a wealthy background.

He concealed his true gender from her for 17 years, using a home-made part of the anatomy for sex. At a Court of Appeal hearing in 1996, Mr J failed in a bid for a share of the marriage wealth, including a £400,000 home.

At that hearing, Lord Justice Ward described the marriage as a "travesty" and said that many people would find it quite astonishing that in 17 years of life together Mrs C did not realise she was living with a woman.