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Eye on parenting
July 18
Same sex parenting is clearly on the rise in WA, and has today made its way into the pages of the West Australian. New parents Leonie and Marnie Woodley and Josh O’Keefe, along with their son Quinn Silas Woodley-O’Keefe are featured on pages 2 and 23. Josh is the biological father of Quinn, who was created with an egg from Marnie and carried by surrogate Leonie. Josh will stay an active donor as Dad and help raise Quinn with his two mothers.
The feature gives great insight into the hardships, difficult decisions and determination involved same sex parenting; issues often overlooked by those who oppose, and indeed the wider general public. While trying not to drag the four of them into becoming a case study for political debate, the sharing of their journey gives ammunition in dispelling the many myths surrounding same sex parenting.
At first glance, this family flies in the face of many who argue that a child born, or adopted, to gay parents is at a disadvantage because of the lack of a male or female role model. … “We’ll raise our child with open-mindedness and we expect others to do the same and treat his family with the same respect that we expect our son to treat other family units” [said Marnie].
“At the end of the day we love Quinn more than anything,” says Josh. “Quinn is the priority and his wellbeing is number one… what form the family takes is irrelevant.”
All fantastic messages to be promoting. A personal annoyance of mine is the gap in justification between drugged up bogans from Rockingham, Gosnells, wherever, who can end up with an unwanted mistake pregnancy and be able to carry the baby, and committed same sex couples who really are dedicated to the raising of a child, but have to jump through many hoops to do so. Both are extreme ends of the spectrum but the point remains. The West Australian’s feature story also makes a few opposing argument grabs, and you know, I may be a seething atheist, but opposition to this topic always comes from religious family groups. (Keep reading after the cut).
While the best interests of the child are common ground, Australian Family Association WA president John Barich says a “real” mother and father, bonded by marriage, is ideal. “We think that marriage is essential, is intrinsic to the welfare of children,” he said. “To bring up children you’ve got to have marriage, there’s got to be some stability… these other relationships are less stable.”
Whatever. Well, the clear answer to this argument is to legalise gay marriage in Australia. That way this avenue of stability is actually available to same sex couples. You can’t make arbitrary comments that gay people hold less stable relationships when they’re not on the same playing field and have restricted access to the same societal frameworks (ie. marriage) that heterosexual couples have. Besides, are our bogan couple with their mistake baby going to get married and stay together forever? Likely not.
The AFA stance is backed by Right to Life Association WA president Peter O’Meara who said the situation may be detrimental in the long-term. “People are trying to promote this as normal and I think it really works against the child… because the child has no input, he’s just a product of what these people wanted…”
Which is one of the dumbest things I have ever read. I’m not sure if he would have preferred Leonie, Marnie and Josh set up a Foetus Focus Group; “Do you want to be born?”, but I’ve never met a child who got to decide who their parents are. The three have made it quite clear their actions are about bringing up a child they wanted, and not about gaining political ground.
Finally, the Greens MP Giz Watson brings a whole lot of common sense to the political arguments raised in the article:
“Less than 50 per cent of families are two married, heterosexuals who are both the biological parents of the children. We live in a time when there are a whole range of blended families… the critical thing is that it’s a supporting, loving and caring environment for kids to grow up in, not the sexuality of the people doing the parenting.”
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it's all gay rage in perth right now is a 
Thanks tim for your support, we agreed to do the article with a little trepidation and indeed the coming weeks letters to the editor will no doubt provide personal challenge to all 3 of us, the decision to keep an eye on those is yet to be made.
We are all so lucky to have each other and to be able to raise a child based on the foundations of a fantastic friendship and deep respect for one another, a fair advantage when compared to many other parents I’m guessing. As far as we, and Quinn, is concerned, its hard to find a downside.
We hope that sharing our story in such a public forum will provide other couples the confidence or support we received during this experience.
My only comment is that we don’t consider Leonie a surrogate. Perhaps by technicality or law but she is considered Quinn’s mother, same as Marnie.
The outpouring of support we have received from our friends and family during the past few years has been amazing, and since the article going to print, supportive comments from strangers over the weekend who have recognised us from the article only validates what we already knew.
josh
Well done. Great article. Great topic. Well said.
You have hit the nail on the head! So many babies are already born out of wedlock, to parents who rarely stick together.
I know I’d rather be born into a family of THREE loving parents who tried so hard for me to exist.
Also - what about one night stands.. children of those still get to exist and live with one parent. There aren’t two married parties involved there.. should those babies not be born? Consistency people!
Such a fantastic article. Well said.