WASHINGTON – The Obama Administration has banned the words “mother” and “father” on all official government documents.
The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, the State Department says.
“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. “They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’”
A statement on the State Department web site noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.” The statement didn’t note if it was for child applications only.
The State Department said the new passport applications, are available online starting on Monday, January 10.
Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness.
Gay rights groups are applauding the decision.
“Changing the term mother and father to the more global term of parent allows many different types of families to be able to go and apply for a passport for their child without feeling like the government doesn’t recognize their family,” said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council.
Her organization lobbied the government for several years to remove the words from passport applications and tax returns.
Polygamist groups have also lobbied to have Parent Three and Parent Four added to all government documents.
Some conservative Christians are outraged over the decision.
“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”
Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, agreed. “It’s part of an overall attempt at political correctness to diminish the distinction between men and women and to somehow suggest you don’t need both a father and a mother to raise a child successfully,” said Jeffress. “(This decision) was made to make homosexual couples feel more comfortable in rearing children.”
Chrisler recounted the day she and her female partner tried to get her twin sons passports.
“Even though my partner was their legal mother, had adopted them after I gave birth to them, she still had to put her name in the father field, and that is both discriminatory and makes us feel like second-class citizens,” she said.
Sprague said she would not use the word discriminatory to describe the old passport form.
“I would prefer to use the word imprecise,” she said. “It just didn’t capture the reality of their situation. Clearly, we want to be sensitive to the feelings of other people, but we are also very conscious of our need to introduce the greatest degree of precision to the process.”
Perkins, meanwhile, accused the State Department of disrespecting the law and called on Congress to “take their oversight rule very seriously and intervene in both these circumstances.”
The new gender-neutral passport application will be rolled out in February and the words “mother” and “father” must NOT appear on tax returns. If the words appear, the taxpayer will be fined $1,000 for each use of the word.
Holy Mother Fugger Batman!!! This is terrible!!!
After looking at the pic above of the many wives of bigamist, I conclude that the man begged the prosecutor to send him to prison for a very long time. Where did they come up with those hairdo's? LOL!!!
whose the father of our country mother>….. .
You reap what you have sown .An eye for an eye .Did you just thought that you could go on acting as God on earth and not suffer the consequences? brace your self .You have not seen nothing yet.But thon't fell bad your country is not the only one going down .All the English speaking country's will suffer the same faith .You have to realize that God alone rules the earth and not man!
This is ridiculous . The white over 55 age group don't have a chance anymore and we are all losing our Rights by politicians. I guess we all came from a peatery dish . This world is going to hail in a hand basket. Crazy people in high places….scary
Well, like Mr. Obama said, "America is not a Christain Nation". He was right. Barak Obama has publicly denounced Jesus Christ for our nation. PSALM 9:17 says, "The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget God". As a nation we have forgotten our God. We have taken prayer out of our schools, and let the guns in. We've taken the Ten Commandments out of the courthouse, and told the people; if you want them, put them in your house. It was once a time when other nations would borrow from America. Now America is borrowing from other nations. Just about everything you buy says "MADE IN CHINA". This is because of our huge debt with them. Soon they will demand payment, and America will not be able to pay. PROVERBS 22:7 says, "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender". Soon our great country will no longer be great. "THE GREAT STATUE OF LIBERTY". What about it huh? "LADY LIBERTY" is stumbling because her light has gone out, and soon she will fall.