Volume 21, Number 1, 2004
Articles
- Judicial Redefinition of Marriage - Monte Neil Stewart
- Nuclear Norms or Fluid Families? Incorporating Lesbian and Gay Parents and their Children into Canadian Family Law - Fiona Kelly
As the number of children born into lesbian and gay families increases throughout the western world, custody and access disputes between same&345;sex parents, and between lesbian mothers and gay sperm donors, have begun to emerge. These cases raise fundamental questions about the meaning of family, legal parenthood, and the regulation of the gay and lesbian communities. They also challenge the courts to move beyond biological, heterosexual, and gendered models of family. Amongst academics, and even within the lesbian and gay communities themselves, there are diverging views on how these cases should be dealt with. For example, should law reform in this area be geared towards protecting the "homo-nuclear" family unit (usually two mothers and a child or children), or will recognizing multiple parents and a wide range of family forms more adequately meet the diverse needs of same-sex families? Closely related to this question is the issue of whether any law reform efforts, particularly those dealing with the status and rights of known sperm donors, can be removed from the highly gendered atmosphere which currently pervades family law, both in Canada and elsewhere. This article will critically analyze each of these questions in the context of the recent Canadian and Australian jurisprudence on same-sex parenting.
- Les pères face au système de justice: l'influence des facteurs juridiques sur le niveau
d'engagement paternel à la suite d’un divorce - Nicolas Rousseau et Anne QuéniartGrâce à un certain nombre de recherches sociodémographiques, nous savons que les situations de divorce sont souvent liées à un faible niveau d’engagement paternel. S’appuyant sur une analyse critique des recherches scientifiques produites sur le sujet jusqu’à aujourd’hui, cet article cherche à évaluer l’influence propre des facteurs judiciaires sur le niveau postdivorce d’engagement paternel. D’une part, les résultats obtenus conduisent à relativiser l’accusation de favoritisme sexuel, fréquemment formulée à l’endroit du système judiciaire, et à souligner le poids du consentement mutuel des parents. D’autre part, ces résultats incitent également à nuancer l’influence spécifiquement exercée par la garde partagée sur le niveau d’engagement paternel, en invitant notamment à explorer l’hypothèse d’une prédisposition socioéconomique des familles qui choisissent la garde partagée et en profitent.