Main | Tuesday, December 21, 2010

NORTH CAROLINA: State Supreme Court Rules Against Second-Parent Gay Adoption

In what may be a precedent setting move, North Carolina's state Supreme Court has voided a second-parent adoption case in which an openly lesbian state legislator had adopted the biological son of her former partner. The case arose at the request of the biological mother, who no longer wants her former partner to have parental rights.
The ruling eliminates a method for same-sex couples to adopt and could raise legal questions about so-called second parent adoptions like this one. They have been granted in Durham and Orange counties in recent years, according to testimony and court documents. "If our uniform court system is to be preserved, a new form of adoption cannot be made available in some counties but not all," Newby wrote. For such two-parent adoptions to occur by parents of the same sex - granting inheritance and other rights to the child - same-sex marriage would have to be created in North Carolina or the adoption law would have to be changed, said Michelle Connell, a Winston-Salem lawyer and chairwoman of the family law section of the N.C. Bar Association.
(Tipped by JMG reader Rob)

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