Jay Kaplan, LGBT Project Staff Attorney
Share this on Facebook | Tweet This
April and Jayne just wanted to jointly adopt three special needs children they were foster parenting.
Without both women adopting the children as a family, the couple worried that their kids would lack the legal protection of both parents.
Yet they discovered Michigan had many hurdles that would not permit them to adopt their children together. Many Michigan judges interpret the state's adoption law to mean only married couples can adopt together, using this to discriminate against LGBT couples.
Here at the ACLU of Michigan, we don’t agree with that interpretation of the law. Yet that has been the legal reality for LGBT families in many counties.
April and Jayne filed a federal lawsuit, DeBoer v. Snyder, challenging the State’s refusal to allow them to be legal parents to their children. The State of Michigan is defending this discriminatory policy.
Judge Friedman was assigned to the case and pointed out that the right to adopt hinged on the legal status of marriage. He suggested that April and Jayne should challenge Michigan’s prohibition on the right of same-sex couples to marry as well.
Now, with both adoption and marriage laws being challenged, the policies that most obviously deny same-sex couples the same fundamental rights afforded to opposite-sex couples will be on trial.