BOSTON — When Jacob and Daniel Morris sought to fulfill the dream of becoming parents together, they traveled to Pennsylvania to seek a surrogate. It was there that both their names would be on their child’s birth certificate.
The family now lives in Grafton but was celebrating the Parentage Act signing at the State House Monday by Gov. Maura Healey. It was a seven-year slough to get the bill through the legislative process and on her desk.
“Now everybody in Massachusetts will have the opportunity we had,” said Daniel Morris, whose daughter, Iris, 3, sat on his lap, with his son, Jameson, 7, beside him, clapping and waving Pride flags throughout the ceremony.
“They are the best dads,” said Pamela Morris, who was visiting her grandchildren from North Carolina when the family learned of the bill signing and traveled to Boston to witness the historic moment. “They knew from the moment they were married that children were in the stars for them and worked toward that goal.”
The men have been a couple for almost 20 years and married for 11.
The bill was personal for the legislators who are members of the LGBTQ+ Legislative Caucus, who sponsored the measure.
They include Rep. Hannah Kane, R-Shrewsbury, co-sponsor with Rep. Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown. Kane’s middle daughter, Caitlin, is a lesbian.
“If Caitlin chooses, I want her to experience the joy of being a parent someday with the same rights to establish her parentage and to have the same legal protections, as Jim (Kane’s spouse) and I did,” Kane said. “And I want our future grandchildren to have the security of legal parentage, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, and I want that for all LGBTQ+ families.”
For Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Falmouth, who is gay, and his pregnant sister and sister-in-law, who will not need to legally adopt the child, their parental rights are now established in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts has now become the 10th state to pass a universal parentage act and joins its New England neighbors in recognizing the rights and legal obligations of parents who came to their roles in untraditional ways.
“What defines a family is love and commitment, not outdated notions of who is a parent or how a child comes into the world,” Healey said. “We need to elevate and honor the parent/child bond.”
As she reminded the supporters at the ceremonial bill signing, Massachusetts was the state that declared Love is Love 20 years ago and passed the Marriage Act, legalizing same-sex unions. And, Healey said, Massachusetts is not going back to the time when gender divergency was criminalized.
The fiscal 2025 budget included bills that allows residents to amend their birth certificate and marriage licenses to accurately reflect their gender identity.
“There are so many ways to have a family. However, the law did not recognize all of them,” said Polly Crozier, director of family advocacy at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders . She called the gaps in the law harmful, describing the hoops families were forced to jump through to establish legal parental rights as “maddening and humiliating.”
The new law clarifies who can be a parent and ways to establish parentage rights. It affords equal protections under the law for newly established parents and allows them the right to make decisions involving legal and medical issues, as well as extending Social Security benefits to their children.
The measure does not address past court rulings regarding custody and other parental matters.
In the mix on the podium Monday was a parent who separated from her partner only to learn she was no longer a parent to her children. Her 2016 court case seeking redress launched the state’s endeavor to extend parental rights to include nontraditional family formations. Also attending the ceremony were the children of nontraditional unions.
Darmany Jimenez, 18, a recent Boston Preparatory School graduate, has been testifying on the bill since he was in the fifth grade. His biological mother was unable to parent him and his siblings, leaving the work of raising the family to her friend, Caeli Bourbeau.
“I pleaded with adults to have my family recognized,” Jimenez said. “Since day one she has always been there, put a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, she helped raise me to be the man I am today.”
The new law recognizes those adults who become default parents.
“At the end of the day, she was our parent, always there,” Jimenez said. “She was my rock, there are no words. I love you.”
He pointed out that his family may not appear the same as others and may have come together in nontraditional ways, “but we’re still a family,” Jimenez said.
His mother shed a few tears of happiness and pride as she watched her son stand in front of the crowd to talk about their family and their love for each other. She said Jimenez was starting college in the fall, pre-law, but that she wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up in the State House someday.
After Healey signed the measure, and as the legislators, supporters, advocates and families milled around, Jimenez rushed up to his mom to tell her he had just been offered an internship with Sen. Jamie Eldridge, D-Marlborough. He's on his way already.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Law opens door to establishing parental rights for Mass. families
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