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Jennifer and Cheryl McKettrick have a family like any other, except that they’re gay and entrenched in an ongoing struggle for the recognition of their family unit and the right to identify themselves as the parents of their son, Josh.
If their names are recognizable, it’s because their attempts to have their family recognized by the law have been the subject of numerous articles over the past five years (see “Whose Law Counts?,” issue of April 9-15, 2003). The Mason couple were the first same-sex couple married at Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church, a move that ended in their officiant, the Rev. Stephen Van Kuiken, being ousted from that church and starting another. The marriage holds no legal status, the couple say, but was an important declaration of their lifelong commitment.
Their move to be recognized as Josh’s mothers resulted in a legal ordeal, stretching almost four years, that is only partially resolved. Both of the women have blood ties to their son, though only one of them, Cheryl, is legally considered Josh’s parent.
The risk of family
Jennifer’s attorney, Sherry Davis, explains that Cheryl is Josh’s genetic mother and Jennifer is Josh’s biological mother. The couple used medical advances as a creative way to circumvent Ohio law prohibiting a same-sex couple from both being named parents of the same child.
Cheryl had her egg fertilized with sperm from a bank and then implanted in Jennifer. So Josh has Cheryl’s DNA, but it was Jennifer who bore him.
“It’s not unheard of,” Davis says. “What is striking is that the birth mother could have been excluded (from having custodial rights).”
That’s exactly what happened at first. It was 2001, a year after the McKettricks’ controversial marriage.
“We were traditional in one way,” Cheryl laughs. “I refused to get her pregnant ’til she married me.”
At Josh’s birth, both women signed their names to his birth certificate.
Cheryl says they amended the certificate to reflect that he had two mothers, and a short time later the hospital’s records department called saying they couldn’t do that.
“It was kind of a slap in the face to us,” Cheryl says. “As heterosexual parents are recognized by the state for having given birth or via genetics … we thought we were perfectly in our rights to do this.”
The couple responded by filing a co-custody agreement in Warren County Court. It was rejected and then later accepted by the Ohio 12th District Court of Appeals, Davis says. The court forced Cheryl to relinquish her sole parental rights to permit Jennifer to be the co-custodian, Davis says, adding that she admired Jennifer for having risked losing her rights to Josh in order to secure rights for Cheryl.
In the course of these proceedings, the McKettricks employed a team of three attorneys and were aided by Lambda, a GLBT service organization in Chicago. The process took from early 2001 until late 2004.
“In the end, they said that Cheryl is allowed to share her custody but I’m not recognized as Joshua’s parent,” Jennifer says.
The kids get it
Seeking the right to be called the mother of the child she bore is about much more than just semantics, according to Jennifer. Meetings at school and boarding a plane can be wrought with additional challenges that have made it necessary for the couple to carry a dossier on Josh’s parentage.
“Just filling out the documents at the hospital is difficult,” Jennifer says. “They’re not prepared for our type of family, and it takes extra work.”
Jennifer adds that there are countless rights afforded to heterosexuals, even when they’ve remarried multiple times. The McKettricks don’t share in the same inheritance rights or social security benefits, either.
Were Cheryl to die while Josh is a minor, Jennifer could lose custody.
“It’s disheartening,” she says.
Cheryl says they plan on retiring in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is permitted and same-sex couples may legally adopt. She says different states’ treatment of same-sex marriage remind her of the split between free and slave states in the 19th century.
Davis says she hopes that legal victories, even partial wins such as with the McKettricks, will advance the cause of non-traditional families.
“I think the door has clearly been opened to this new legal status, to better rights afforded to families where there are same-sex couples,” Davis says. “It’s a big step, particularly in Ohio.”
The issue is one of their family, not politics, the couple says.
“All this is about is Joshua,” Jennifer says. “If left to our own devices we wouldn’t want to be mentioned in news articles. It’s about making a better future.”
Cheryl describes their home life as very average. She’s an engineer and Jennifer is a social worker. They’ve been together for eight years. Both work full-time, and Josh attends pre-school.
“In evenings, we share in the responsibilities,” Cheryl says. “Typically there’s a full family sitting around the table. … It’s just a normal, everyday life in suburbia.”
Living in Greater Cincinnati can be difficult, Jennifer says.
“Being the conservative pocket of Ohio, it’s not always a joyful place to live,” she says.
But there are bright spots.
Cheryl says they’ve tried to prepare Josh for all kinds of situations and, at the age of 5, he’s as transparent as he can be. She says that one day in school the kids got up in front of the class to talk about their parents and Josh told the other students about his two moms.
“None of these kids skipped a beat,” Cheryl says. “It was OK because they haven’t been told or trained otherwise.” ©
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2006.