Finding that the ability of a couple to adopt a child is a “benefit” of marriage, U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan, III, ruled on March 31 in Campaign for Southern Equality v. Mississippi Department of Human Services, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43897 (S.D. Miss.), that Mississippi’s statutory ban on adoptions by same-sex couples probably violates the 14th Amendment under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. Although Judge Jordan found … <Read More>
Putting together the power of the U.S. Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause and a verdict by a jury who got to see the parties testify, a Texas gay co-parent has preserved his status as “sole managing conservator” of the child he and his former partner/spouse conceived with the help of a gestational surrogate. Herein lies a somewhat complicated tale providing new evidence of the extraordinary developments in LGBT family law over the past few … <Read More>
A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals of Indiana, pointing out that it was bound by prior state supreme court precedent, rejected a claim by a lesbian co-parent that the trial court erred in not awarding her joint custody of the child she was raising with her former partner. However, the court said that she should be allowed to seek visitation rights, finding that there was no binding precedent against this and it would … <Read More>
The Kansas Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a lesbian co-parent who entered into a written co-parenting agreement with her partner before her partner had a child through assisted reproductive technology (ART) can seek enforcement of the agreement in the Kansas courts, premised on a gender-neutral interpretation of the Kansas version of the Uniform Parentage Act. Ruling in Frazier v. Goudschaal on February 22, the court also found that the trial court had authority to … <Read More>