Gay-Marriage Bans: The Boomerang Effect

Denise Fairchild was artificially inseminated in 1997. She raised her son with her lesbian partner Therese Leach until the couple split in 2001. Now Fairchild wants to deny her former partner visitation rights, and she's citing Ohio's new constitutional ban on gay marriage. Since they were never legally married under Ohio law, Fairchild claims, Leach does not have the rights of a former spouse. Leach's attorney argues that the amendment doesn't apply to parent-child relationships. "I'm using a piece of legislation that will deny me rights later in life," Fairchild says. "But before I am a lesbian and a member of the gay community, I am his mother."

Last November Ohio passed one of the nation's most far-reaching gay-marriage bans. It prohibits not only gay marriage but also any relationship that "intends to approximate" marriage. Now that broad language is being used in an array of unlikely legal cases. Dozens of Ohio men charged with domestic abuse, for example, are prepared to argue in court that domestic-violence laws, which carry stiffer penalties than standard assault charges, no longer apply to them, since they are not married to the women they're accused of beating. Legal experts fear they may be right. "It's very clear that this amendment applies to unmarried heterosexual couples as well as homosexual couples," says Lewis Katz, a criminal-law professor at Case Western Reserve University. "These defense lawyers will try anything to win," counters Phil Burress, president of the conservative Citizens for Community Values and sponsor of the amendment. But just in case they are successful, Burress is working with lawmakers to draft new domestic-violence laws. --By Chris Maag