Feel the Homomentum!

UK Edition: Lesbians given equal birth rights:

Women in same-sex relationships can now register both their names on the birth certificate of a child conceived as a result of fertility treatment.

Female couples not in a civil partnership but receiving fertility treatment may also both be registered.

The law change applies to female couples in England and Wales who were having fertility treatment on or after 6 April 2009.

...Stonewall's Head of Policy and Research Ruth Hunt said that as a result of the law change, life for lesbian families "isn't only fairer, it's also much easier".

She added: "As the law improves to provide further equality, knowing your new rights will help people make full use of the services they're entitled to. And, if discrimination occurs, the same knowledge can help them demand fair treatment.

"Now lesbian couples in the UK who make a considered decision to start a loving family will finally be afforded equal access to services they help fund as taxpayers."

There's no information on when the same right be extended to gay male partners using a surrogate, for example, and same-sex partners of both sexes who adopt, but that's certainly in the pipeline.

Even in Blighty, there's got to be conservative ding-a-lings warbling about the sanctity of marriage and whataboutthechildrenz:

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries told the BBC that the move undermined the traditional family model.

She said: "If we want to build a stable society, a mother and father and children works as the best model.

"We should be striving towards repairing and reinforcing marriage. I think this move sends out the exact opposite message."

...Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, criticised the move, telling the Daily Mail that the change would "create a legal fiction around the parentage of the children" which would then result in a "legal minefield" when it came to issues of maintenance and inheritance.

He was supported by Labour MP Geraldine Smith, who said: "To have a birth certificate with two mothers and no father is just madness."

MADNESS! What's next?! Travel to THE MOON?!

MP Nadine Dorries, Dr. Peter Saunders, and MP Geraldine Smith then collectively pooped their pants.

[H/T to Shaker The Bald Soprano.]