https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/nebraska-judge-says-birth-certificates-cant-name-2-mothers

How are you all feeling about this?

Lancaster County District Judge Ryan Post said in his ruling last month dismissing the lawsuit that state law requires birth certificates to acknowledge paternity. Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services policy also requires that parents listed on birth certificates be the biological parents of the child, he said.

If this law is actually evenly applied also to heterosexuals (of course a heterosexual couple could, in most cases, just lie and no one would know), then perhaps there needs to be two sections on birth certificates, one for the biological parents and one for the legal parents. But in the same vein, I highly doubt a sperm donor wants to be named on a birth certificate, especially if he just donated to some bank and wasn't even personally involved with the couple. The only real importance in tracking the biological parents is determining the propensity for genetic diseases. This couple used a sperm bank, so there is already documentation of the biological father, and donors are required to be in great health with great genes.

What is the point in naming the biological father on the birth certificate if he has no legal rights to the child, and will not be involved whatsoever in the child's life? The lesbian couple should have the right to have both their names, the names of the two people who will be the child's parents, on their birth certificates. If they demand a section for biological parents, it's acceptable. However, it's not acceptable to completely deny them that legal recognition. A straight couple in Nebraska who uses a sperm donor to conceive (maybe the male doesn't produce sperm or enough sperm or has a heritable disease he's choosing not to pass down) will not be forced to do this, as the hospital where the child is born will have no knowledge of how the child is conceived or by whom.

Do they conduct a paternity test with every straight couple to confirm they are actually following the law and the man is biologically the father? What do they do if the mother doesn't know who the father is? Legal penalties if she leaves it blank or lies or is simply wrong? No. This kind of testing is draconian for such an unimportant matter. If they were sincere in their argument, it would occur, or there would be a separate section for biological and legal parents. And the fact that the couple was already allowed to amend one of their sons' birth certificates shows that the "the parents have to be biological" law is not applied evenly at all.

They also accused the state of sexual discrimination because it allows men to voluntarily acknowledge that they are parents to get onto a birth certificate, but doesn’t allow women to do so.

This argument is a giant miss. I'm tired of seeing instances of homophobia against female homosexuals framed as sexism or "misogyny". Obviously a female can't verbally say she is the (in this case, biological) mother when she's standing next to the person actually giving birth to the child. This is only an issue because they're a homosexual couple.

But Judge Post said the women failed to identify “a single court that has adopted their constitutional arguments.”

Classic. Make a conservative ruling with your whole chest, don't act like a little worm and say "uhh not my department". It is your department. This is the same argument conservatives used when they appealed Roe v Wade. "Uhh idk it's not that I disagree I'm just not ruling in your favor and uhhh idk ask another judge or something case dismissed." Pathetic.

With Roe v Wade, it was "ok well uhh we're not gonna ban it but uhh the Supreme Court should step back and do nothing ever and be completely ineffectual so we are just gonna repeal this but it's not that we disagree with abortion it's just that the Supreme Court should never make any decisions ok bye", and then 5 minutes later GOP Senators are calling for a federal ban on abortion. So this argument that "uhh this government organization I somehow got into is too powerful time to destroy it from within for the good of the people and then complain about how bad it is later so we can get rid of it and allow McDonald's and megachurches to govern us with their sweet private money and loving, generous hearts. They really have the best interests of the people at heart" is completely transparent and a legitimate slippery slope.