Brian, Matthew, Evan and Justin
We have been a couple for over 17 years, and we have two sons: Evan, 15 months and Justin, 8 weeks. We both wanted children from early in the relationship but we wanted to wait until after we had finished our education and were financially secure. Eight years later, we had started the adoption process when Matt was temporarily transferred to Australia.
After living here four years, we loved it so much we decided to stay. To our surprise and extreme disappointment, we found that we could not adopt as a gay couple, nor could we do domestic surrogacy. Because we wanted full custody of our children, co-parenting was not right for us. We understood that overseas surrogacy was the only path left to us and we were extremely fortunate that we were able to afford it.
We had two wonderful experiences with the same surrogate. After Evan was born Dorothy volunteered to do it for us again, resulting in Justin. She does not have a parental role but will always be a close family friend. Both of us had sisters willing to be egg donors but because of age restrictions we went with Matt’s sister. The children will always know that their aunt donated the eggs and that Dorothy carried them. It will always be treated as a source of pride.
In general, we don’t really feel any different from other families. Aside from the obvious discrimination, we face the same issues. We’ve got many straight friends with kids and we feel as welcome with them as with other gay families.
Being American citizens, we have found immigration law our biggest challenge. Not only did we have trouble with a homophobic case worker when we initially applied for residency, but immigration law also doesn’t specify how to handle same-sex parentage. This allows arbitrary interpretation by the assigned case worker which in turn allows any homophobia to wreak havoc with the whole process.
When bringing Evan into the country, it took the immigration department three months to grant a bridging visa despite the fact that we are both permanent residents, both listed on the birth certificate, and we had court orders declaring our parentage with internationally-recognised certificates
attached. This would’ve taken four to six weeks had we been a recognised married couple or even an unmarried straight couple.
During this time, Matt had to return to work in Australia while Brian and Evan spent a month staying with different family members in the US and another two alone in New Zealand, which at least allowed Matt to visit on weekends. This period was hardest on Matt because he missed so much of Evan’s early formative time.
We eventually learned from a contact in immigration that there was no reason for Evan’s visa to have been held up – our case worker was apparently just stretching out the time required. We could do nothing because appeals are not heard until an application is declined.
Legally recognised marriage for same-sex couples would stop this kind of discrimination. We believe that if the government could see marriage as a civil right and not a religious privilege then much discrimination could be removed. Australia is a great country and we believe it is only hurting itself by not eliminating its institutionalised discrimination. Twenty years from now, we believe people will ask, “What was the big deal?”
