Get Ready for Gender-Neutral Passports

The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, according to the State Dept.

“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father’,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services Brenda Sprague. “They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’”

A statement on the State Department website 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.”

Sprauge said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness.

“We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” she said.

Gay rights groups are hailing 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.

“Our government needs to recognize that the family structure is changing,” Chrisler said. “The best thing that we can do is support people who are raising kids in loving, stable families.”

But 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 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 accused the State Dept. of disrespecting the law and called on Congress to “take their oversight rule very seriously and intervene in both these circumstances.”

“The State Department’s abolition of motherhood and fatherhood would be almost comical, if it did not fly in the face of mounting social science evidence that children are most likely to thrive when born into a family led by their own married biological mother and father,” Perkins said.

The new gender-neutral passport will be rolled out in February.

Todd Starnes is a Fox News Radio reporter and best-selling author. Click here to join his Facebook and Twitter pages.

10 Comments

FriggyFrogFan

January 7, 2011 at 3:22 pm

Why do these dipsticks have to cause so much controversy if this is not for political correctness? Why don't they just list all possible choices as they do for race and ethnicity on forms and say circle one! I'm sorry, but I am not a Parent1 or Parent2, I am a mother!!!!!!!!!
GotFreedom

January 7, 2011 at 3:33 pm

As a mother, I did not go through months of morning sickness, long hours of labor, years of child rearing (good times and bad, happiness and heartbreak) to be called "parent one" or "parent two"!

I am a Wife (not a significant other); I am a Mother (not a generic "parent"), a Daughter/Aunt (not just someone's "relations").

The majority of families in this country are between a Father & Mother! Just to be politically correct, the State Dept is going to discount the majority of family dynamics just to cater to the minority–typical with this administration–don't listen to the majority; re-distribute to the minority.

Maybe instead of eliminating "Mother/Father" altogether, the State Dept should give folks the option of "Mother, Father, Parent One/Two" or is it their intent to totally discount the majority of American families? I for one will never consent to being called "parent one" or "parent two"!
Shirley

January 7, 2011 at 5:25 pm

The Lord Jesus said that the world would be like in the days of Naoh before the flood came. Matthew 24. Luke 21 and Mark 13.
Marantha
Ron

January 7, 2011 at 5:58 pm

When God created Adam from dust of the earth, God did not consider him as a neuter gender. When God put Adam to sleep He removed the bone from Adam's side to build him a woman from what came out of Adam's side [no dust used there]. I guess Adam was then left with the male reproductive organs from his former state. Then God said to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. So what have we today? Billions of the same species in a natural order of male and female all of whom become fathers and mothers after marriage. Then God said that a man should leave his FATHER and MOTHER and join himself to his WIFE and the two shall become ONE FLESH, hence an offspring is produced [one flesh of two joined together]. This sounds like to me, according to my experience, to be firstly, the natural [nature] order for the principle of pro-creation on earth, and secondly, God's ordination of fatherhood and motherhood. Anyway, I just don't how anyone can get a round hole to fit into a round hole.
Now for the matter of civil rights: I feel that homosexual couples are entitled to the same CIVIL rights of heterosexuals, but don't lean on us family men by imputing a charge upon us; since all civil rights are for ALL regardless of race, color or GENDER equally; and I'm a father and indeed I am very needed by my children.
Mother

January 7, 2011 at 7:41 pm

If God has ordained I am the wife to my husband, and mother to my children, then titling us as 'Parent One' and 'Parent Two' on our passports is very much against my Biblical beliefs as a Christian and as a member of the Baptist Church. They better keep the old passports for God's people.
Mary belonged

January 8, 2011 at 9:15 am

This is going way too far. I am a mom and no one should deny this title to me!! The slippery slope. Give an inch and it is out of control. Tired of it!
Julie

January 8, 2011 at 4:29 pm

I would like to know who to send my outrage to! This is ridiculous! I have 2 parents, as do my children! They are a mother and a father not parent one and parent 2! When does someone get to stand up for my rights? I'm tired of everything I believe in being taken away for the sake of others being offended…WHAT ABOUT ME? Take everything away from me, my rights, belief, etc. all for someone else. It's time someone fought back!!!
Liberator

January 9, 2011 at 5:10 pm

If a child IS raised with a mother and father, then it should remain a valid option for both parents to be recognised on the passport. THAT is being precise. I would vehemently demind that.
Nick

January 17, 2011 at 3:30 pm

Whether you believe in gay parenting or not, there are between 8 and 10 million children being raised by gay parents in the US. Of course the passports should be inclusive of them.

Having your name under "Parent 1" doesn't make you not a mother or not a father. ("Parent" after all, means "mother" or "father.")
jairo

February 14, 2011 at 7:02 am

There is only one word I can say: appalling