Boston-based GLAD (GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders) applauded the US Supreme Court’s denial to review a petition this week that would have discriminated against the right of same-sex spouses to appear on their children’s birth certificates.
Box v. Henderson was brought to the Court by the state of Indiana, which sought to adopt a “biology-based birth-certificate system” where a “birth mother’s husband — but not wife — is the child’s biological parent.” A US Appeals Court had ruled against the state, siding with the plaintiffs, eight married lesbian couples who wanted both moms’ names on their kid’s birth certificates without going through the process of adoption.
The ruling was based on the presumption that all married couples must be treated equally, as Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling, calls for. Given the Court’s shift to the right, especially following the recent appointment of Justice Barrett, their decision not to review this case comes as good news for the future of that marriage-equality ruling as well as for equal parenting rights.
“Ensuring that children have a clear legal tie to their parents from birth is core to children’s well-being and stability. Indiana law provides a marital presumption of parentage for children regardless of genetic connection between parent and child,” stated GLAD Senior Attorney Patience Crozier.
“For Indiana, or any State, to carve married LGBTQ parents out of that protection and seek to make married LGBTQ parents legal strangers to their children is not only unconstitutional, it is dangerous and cruel.
“By rejecting Indiana’s petition, the Court yet again makes clear that States have an obligation to provide all children equal access to the security of legal parentage regardless of the gender of their parents,” said Crozier, who is also a member of the Uniform Law Commission’s national Uniform Parentage Act Enactment Committee.
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