Breaking: Utah Supreme Court Lifts Stay On Adoptions By Same-Sex Couples

The Utah State Supreme Court tonight lifted a five-month old stay, paving the way for spouses in same-sex marriages to adopt the children of their husbands or wives.

Legally-married same-sex couples will be able to adopt children, including the children of their spouses, after the Utah Supreme court lifted a stay on adoptions it had imposed back in May.

The high court had placed the stay to allow Attorney General Sean Reyes to appeal last December’s federal ruling that struck down a ban on same-sex marriage. Earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review any same-sex marriage case, including Utah’s.

“The action clears the way for the Utah Department of Health to issue birth certificates that list the same-sex parents as the children’s legal parents,” the Salt Lake Tribune reported this evening. “It will also restart countless other adoptions that were left in limbo by Utah’s contention that the cases should be on hold until it was clear that gay marriage would be legal in the Beehive state.”

“The families involved are obviously relieved and thrilled,” said Laura Milliken Gray, an attorney who represented one of the four families, and who also had six other adoptions in process when the stay was put in place.

“This rectifies a major injustice,” said Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah. “Families all over Utah are celebrating having their families united.”

About 26 percent of Utah’s same-sex couples are raising children, data from the University of California, Los Angeles-based Williams Institute shows. In the two weeks since same-sex marriage became legal in Utah, gay couples have rushed to start or finalize adoption petitions, so that their children will have two legal parents and full protections under state law, Gray said. 

“I probably have a dozen new families from here to Cedar City,” she said. “They’re hurrying because some families worry that the Legislature is going to try and do something that will once again interfere with their rights.”

 

Image by Pink Sherbet Photography via Flickr