Cathy Pareto and Karla Arguello from St. Petersburg, Florida are suing the state because they say the Bureau of Vital Statistics will not allow hospitals to list both same-sex parents on birth certificates as reported by the Associated Press.
On Thursday they filed the suit in federal court in Tallahassee.Pareto and Arguello had twins on August 6 and they said they were told by the hospital records manager that both of their names could not be on the birth certificate.
Pareto said:
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Completing this poll grants you access to Shark Tank updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to this site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.Karla and I made the decision to expand our family together. We went through the whole fertility process together. The whole thing has been a unified front as a married couple. To then be told I couldn’t be on my own children’s birth certificate? It was degrading.
They were also the first same-sex couple to be legally wed in the state.
Pareto also pointed out if a married man and woman had fertility problems and they used a sperm donor to conceive the state would allow the husband to be on the birth certificate even though he is not the biological father.She asked:
Why are they questioning me because I’m not biologically tied?
The LGBT group Equality Florida is behind the couple. They said not allowing both names on the baby’s birth certificate is “wrong and mean-spirited.”
They also said:
Pretty much almost every other state has already done this. They did it; they did it right. Florida’s going to waste time, waste money and leave parents who should be celebrating the birth of their child in uncertainty because both parents aren’t included on the birth certificate.