This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

In her Oct. 18 column, "Utah takes small, slow steps on gays," Rebecca Walsh asserts that the Utah Supreme Court recently denied a "lesbian mother's request for visitation with the daughter she had helped raise from birth."

As one of the lawyers who assisted with this case, I can state that this assertion is incorrect. The daughter in question had no biological, adoptive or legal link to the woman requesting visitation with the child. In fact, she was not the "mother," but at the time of the girl's birth, was a live-in partner with the girl's actual and biological mother.

If you take that rationale to its logical conclusion, a live-in boyfriend, who may have only known a child for seven months or so, could claim to be a "parent" and demand visitation. Once you start extending visitation rights to individuals who have no biological, adoptive or legal link to a child, you open up a Pandora's box of issues that will ultimately destroy the rights of biological or adoptive parents.

The issue was not denial of visitation to an "aggrieved parent," but instead was sleight of hand to advance an agenda that seeks to redefine the family until it has been reduced to meaninglessness.

Joe Infranco

Senior legal counsel

Alliance Defense Fund

Scottsdale, Ariz.