And a pleasantly startling decision out of the Indiana Court of Appeals, and a thoroughly shocking, if similar, one out of the Texas appeals court.
Appeals court upholds lesbian adoption
By Scott E. Williams
The Daily News (Galveston County)
Published November 27, 2004
A state appeals court has upheld a Galveston County woman’s adoption of her former lesbian partner’s biological daughter.
The appeal, submitted by island attorney Anthony Griffin, asserted that Family Court Judge Janis Yarbrough lacked jurisdiction to grant validity to a void adoption when Yarbrough upheld the adoption after a hearing last month.
Attorneys for the biological mother, Julie Hobbs, said the state court’s ruling cited problems with the form of the appeal, not with the merits of the case itself, and said a further appeal to the Texas Supreme Court was possible.
Hobbs and Kathleen Van Stavern were a couple in 1998, when the girl was born to Hobbs. In 2001, the couple filed for and received termination of parental rights of the biological father, a matter of course in artificial insemination cases. As part of the filing, Van Stavern sought to adopt the child and was successful. [...] Associate Family Court Judge Stephen Baker on Sept. 9 ruled in Van Stavern’s favor under a provision of the state family code that renders unassailable any adoption not challenged within six months of its passage. Attorneys for Hobbs appealed that ruling to Yarbrough, who upheld Baker’s ruling.
Court extends rights to gay mom (Indianapolis Star)
By Tim Evans
November 27, 2004
When female partners in Indiana agree to conceive a child through artificial insemination, both partners are the legal parents, according to a groundbreaking decision this week by the Indiana Court of Appeals.
The court also chided state lawmakers for being slow to deal with advances in reproductive technology, urging the legislature to address the "current social reality" of unconventional families. "No (legitimate) reason exists to provide the children born to lesbian parents through the use of reproductive technology with less security and protection than that given to children born to heterosexual parents through artificial insemination," Judge Ezra H. Friedlander wrote in the ruling issued Wednesday. "Our paramount concern should be with the effect of our laws on the reality of children's lives," according to the ruling, which was unanimous.
The appeals court overturned the ruling of Monroe Circuit Judge Kenneth G. Todd, who found Dawn King had no legal standing with the girl born to her former partner, Stephanie Benham, because King was not a biological parent. The child is 5 years old. [...] King admitted she hadn't been optimistic about the outcome of the case, which still could be appealed. "It came as a big surprise, really, considering the political climate," she said.
I should think it was a surprise, yes. Never mind the fact that it was a unanimous decision.
Of the two, the Indiana decision is somewhat more noteworthy for acknowledging that children do appear in circumstances other than the allegedly standard mom-and-dad family. The Texas decision is purely technical ... although, to be sure, it is utterly neutral; the result would likely be the same regardless of the gender of the people involved. The question for Texas will likely wind up being whether or not one child can now legally be adopted between two people who have technically no relationship that the state is allowed to recognize. Will the state supreme court decide that the adoption could not have been valid in the first place, and thus the technical provision does not apply? That would, frankly, seem a likely result, given Texas' laws.
I hope the Indiana decision survives or is affirmed by the Indiana Supreme Court, assuming it gets that far. (I would imagine that, if the custodial parent declines to pursue the case, various conservative groups will try to keep it going, despite lacking standing. That is, after all, what they do.)
Posted by iain at November 29, 2004 05:58 PM
