State Confirms: Gay Bill Targeting Mother, Father References Would Have Wide Impact
It’s now clear, if passed, HB 201 “would affect all birth certificates yet to be issued.” The homosexual lobby is livid over their failed efforts to conceal the wide ranging impact of this proposed legislation that strips mother and father references from some birth certificates. We rightly voiced our concerns about HB 201 a few weeks ago and were viciously attacked by claims that we didn’t have our facts straight. But now a state agency has confirmed, HB 201 will affect all birth certificates, requiring more than 20 forms to be changed to comply with this “gay-rights” bill.
To recap: late last month, Democrat State Rep. Rafael Anchia (Dallas) filed HB 201, with the support of “gay-rights” group Equality Texas, to strip the specific references to a mother and father from supplementary birth certificates for adoption. HB 201 would apply to all heterosexual parent(s) seeking these birth certificates, not just those that consider themselves homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gay, cisgender or pansexual. Stripping mother and father from supplementary birth certificates creates a clear conflict in the law and would allow the homosexual lobby to ultimately demand that all birth certificates should be stripped of mother and father references. Mother and father references in Texas law is the current standard for birth certificates. We firmly believe this bill, in striking the current reference to mother and father, will affect mother and father references for all birth certificates.
The Texas Department of State Health Services, which oversees and would implement these proposed changes, has confirmed our analysis on the bill (our emphasis):
Based on the plain language of the filed bill, it may not appear to affect all birth certificates to be issued. However, if the modification is made to only supplementary birth records, it may have the effect of identifying adopted persons. If you modify just the supplementary birth records of adopted persons by including only gender neutral references to the parents (e.g. “parent 1” and “parent 2”) and leave all other birth records with the “mother” and “father” references, that gender neutral reference/record distinguishes adopted person’s records and thus identifies them, which under current state law, is prohibited. As a result, we would have to have a consistent reference on all birth certificates going forward so as to not bring attention to those which are for adopted persons. (i.e. – “mother” and “father” would need to be removed from all Birth Certificates)
You also asked, would it remove “mother” and “father” from all certificates?” The answer may be no if we can find a way to add “or parent” “or co-parent” or some other additional category along with “mother” and “father” to provide the gender neutral option provided by the bill on all certificates such as “Mother or Parent 1” and “Father or Parent 2”. This may be an issue of space on the certificates so it’s unclear at this point if this is an option.
DSHS would need to modify more than 20 forms which currently reflect the names of the mother and father to show parent and co-parent to comply with this bill. These modifications would result in programming changes which must be made to the Texas Electronic Registrar and Remote Issuance systems, as well as the Texas.gov web portal. These changes would affect all birth certificates yet to be issued. It would not affect birth certificates already issued.
As we mentioned, the homosexual lobby is not happy that we have exposed the damage this bill would do in undermining our commonsense policy in current law that all birth certificates should reference a mother and father (see our TV interview below). But even the liberal Austin American Statesman in a Politifact article could not dismiss our argument on the bill’s wide impact, given the comments from the State.
These attacks on us are simply trying to hide the plain fact that this bill would radically change birth certificates in Texas. With the facts on our side, as confirmed by the state, we will not stop in our efforts to expose the radical agenda of the homosexual lobby. Texas Values will be leading the charge in the coming 2013 legislation session to oppose the bill and all others that seek to undercut our family values. Take a stand with us – sign the Texas Values Promise today!
See our interview on this issue: