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From July, 2010 eNews Vol. 7 No. 7

Q: Last year, I asked my boss for medical leave to care for my eight-year-old son, who had been diagnosed with leukemia. We’ve raised him together since the day he was born, but I was denied leave because I’m not his biological mother and second-parent adoptions are unavailable in my state. Would the new interpretation of the Family and Medical Leave Act that President Obama announced in June have helped?

A: It should. While the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) still won’t allow you to take leave to care for a sick partner, the clarification set forth in the June 22 Administrator’s Interpretation by the Department of Labor does put all parents on equal footing. It gives LGBT employees the same right as their heterosexual co-workers to care for a sick child, even if that child is non-biological or non-adoptive. If you are one of the primary caretakers, you’re eligible.

Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993. It says that public employees or people who work for private worksites with 50 or more employees are generally entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a parent, spouse, son or daughter with “a serious health condition.” It also allows new parents time off to care for a newborn or recently adopted child. Before this recent clarification of the law, you could be assured of equal respect for your parenting role only if you were lucky enough to live in a state that offered second-parent adoption. If not, as you found out last year, you ran the risk of being turned down—the victim of a painful double standard. And like you, many of us don’t have access to laws that allow us to formalize our relationship with a partner’s child.

Keep in mind that you will still need to meet all the FMLA eligibility criteria for a parent to take unpaid leave, such as length of employment. But we see this as a sign that federal policies are finally starting to catch up with the ways people in this country actually live their lives. The thousands of American children that live with lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender parents deserve to have both parents be able to care for them when they’re sick without putting anyone’s job in jeopardy. And every newborn child and newly placed infant has the same need to bond with his or her new parents. The FMLA interpretation ensures that new families get off on the right foot, whether headed by straight or gay parents.

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