1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«This article’s argument concerns the complex relationship between empirical evidence of social practices and well-intentioned law reform [in Québec and United Kingdom]. It is a reminder that reform will not merely reflect social practices, but also intervene in them, in unpredictable ways. Law reform cannot respond to all practices in a given area, and so requires choices that are unavoidably normative and distributive. While the examples vary significantly, the argument might be made using practices currently partly or wholly ‘outside’ the law such as polygamy, prostitution, or use of prohibited narcotics. It might be made using commercial practices that secure an obligation, functionally, while evading regulation aimed at charges constituted formally on a borrower’s property. This article’s case study is the push for legal recognition of parenting by lesbian couples.» (p. 331-332)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
Données documentaires diverses

Type de traitement des données :
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

«In the civil law of Quebec, derived from the French tradition, ‘filiation’ is the legal relationship connecting a child to her mother or father. Quebec’s reforms to the regime of filiation in its Civil Code arrived in 2002 with the civil union, open to same-sex couples (Leckey, 2009b). » (p. 334) À la lumière de ses recherches, l’auteur conclut que «the likelihood that some observable practices of lesbian parenting bear the imprint of heterosexist and homophobic legal and social conditions means that such practices cannot be taken uncritically as a plumb-line for legislative policy. Attention must also be given to the ways that legislation will alter the practices it aims to recognize, as well as to the impact on family forms not recognized. In a scholarly setting, it is disingenuous to presume that reforms, even those determined to be the most desirable, are costless. The reforms in the UK and Quebec, for instance, most marginalize those whose kinship configurations are least like the two-parent nuclear model.» (p. 343)