[BREAKING] GOP lawmakers push Hochul to veto bill to erase ‘mother,’ ‘father’ from parts of NYS law

Republican state lawmakers pressured Gov.

Kathy Hochul to take a stand before Father's Day to veto a bill that would erase “mother” and “father” from child custody and parenting laws.

Hochul's fellow Democrats approved the gender-neutral measure that would replace “mother” with “surrogate parent” and “father” with “non-surrogate parent” or “father” in family court and domestic and education law, and she has signaled she will sign it into law.

But legislative minority Republicans said in a letter obtained by The Post that Hochul should oppose “virtue signaling.” "Even considering replacing the term 'father' with 'non-surrogating father' diminishes the role that so many fathers play in their children's lives," said the letter, signed by state Sens.

Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick (R-Nassau County), Bill Weber (R-Rockland County) and Alexis Weik (R-Suffolk County).

"The first word out of a child's mouth is usually 'mom' or 'dad,'" the senators told Hochul.

"As a mother and grandmother, you must understand the unique and indispensable role that mothers play in our families and communities.

They are women who work and support their children, and they are the core of any family," the senators added.

"Relegating mothers to the term 'expectant parents' is extremely offensive and dehumanizing and serves nothing more than virtue signaling." Hochul's office dismissed criticism of the bill as “nonsense,” even though some Democrats voted against the measure in the legislature.

"Mothers are mothers and fathers are fathers.

No legislation changes that," her office wrote in a post on X earlier this month.

“As usual, Republicans are trying to hide from their disastrous policies by fabricating nonsense.” The bill's sponsors, state Sen.

Luis Sepúlveda (D-Bronx) and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Westchester) said the bill is needed to clarify parts of the Family Court Act that deal with surrogacy situations in same-sex marriage cases, but critics have noted that it could have been amended without completely erasing "father" and "mother" from the record.

"By adjusting the language of the law, it is not only possible to make it more inclusive, but also determines the use of a term that encompasses a broader concept of parental care, not one strictly related to 'fatherhood,'" the Republicans said in the letter.

The bill would also rename procedures for determining a biological father from "paternity" to "paternity proceedings," while "putative fathers," also known as deadbeat fathers, would now be "an alleged father." The measure passed in Albany at the end of the legislative session in May with little discussion.

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