The Attorney General of Indiana, Curtis Hill Jnr., has submitted a brief to the Supreme Court asking it to overturn a lower court’s decision to allow a pair of same-sex parents to be listed on their child’s birth certificate.
The case in question involves married parents Ashlee and Ruby Henderson from Lafayette.
Ruby conceived the couple’s child through artificial insemination. When their son was born, officials refused to put both women’s names down on the boy’s birth certificate. It said that the software used to produce the certificates would not allow for it, as one would have to be listed as ‘father’. Instead, they only put Ruby’s name down on the certificate.
Related: Anderson Cooper announces he’s a dad and shares pics of son, Wyatt
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The woman sued Indiana’s health commissioner and various officials in Tippecanoe County in 2015 over the matter. They successfully argued that not listing both parents presented challenges concerning medical insurance cover and that it was unfair that Ruby’s wife, Ashlee, should have to spend $4,000-$5,000 to legally adopt their child to be recognized as his parent.
They won the case in 2016 but the state appealed the decision. In January of this year, a 7th circuit appeals court said that not listing both women could be discriminatory, again supporting the wives (and further plaintiffs who had joined the case) and agreeing with the verdict reached orginally by Indiana’s federal Southern District court.
In his brief to the Supreme Court (Box vs. Henderson), Hill, a Republican prosecutor who has served as the state’s Attorney General since 2017, says SCOTUS should not uphold the appeals court’s decision. He filed the brief in June, according to the Indianapolis Star, and SCOTUS is scheduled to conference on the matter on December 11.
Hill said, “A birth mother’s wife will never be the biological father of the child, meaning that, whenever a birth-mother’s wife gains presumptive ‘parentage’ status, a biological father’s rights and obligations to the child have necessarily been undermined without proper adjudication.”
Related: People are really pissed off about Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black having a baby
Hill argues that States must not “act contrary to biological facts,” saying the “husband of a birth mother is usually the biological father, but the wife of a birth mother is never the biological father.”
This is not the first time that the US Supreme Court has weighed in on this sort of case. In 2017, a similar case was presented from Arkansas. On that occasion, SCOTUS ruled in the couple’s favor. What happens this time remains to be seen, given the lineup of judges of the Supreme Court now features more conservatives.
Mister P
Turn everything around that a Repugnant says. When they say they support families that means they are really anti family.
Phillip
When will these hateful, religious homophobes stop their constant attempts at chipping away at our Constitutional rights? Making up some silly rule about the “father” who does NOT exist in this relationship in order to discriminate against a lesbian family is just another way to try and break up our families and make our marriages LESS than THEIR straight marriages. This is what these hateful people want.
Now, that the Supreme Court has one more right wing religious bigot on their side ready to rule against us, all of these groups are ready to file their cases against us. I cannot wait until the new president is in office and perhaps we have two new senators from Georgia to help us in the Senate to break the log jam with bills that McConnell has been obstructing for eight years. Maybe then, we will have a chance to look at the Supreme Court and decide whether it needs “packing” to take care of this problem.
Kangol2
The GOP strikes again! Just so people know, Curtis Hill Jr., the Indiana AG who is pushing this brief, is an allegedly “pro-family” Republican who has also been anti-LGBTQ while in office. He also opposed needle exchanges, which have been shown to work, and hate crime laws. He is Black but also assailed Black athletes for peacefully kneeling or sitting to protest systemic racism and White supremacy.
The kicker about Mr. Morality? He has been accused by numerous women of sexual harassment in 2018 and predatory behavior in a prior instance, and the charges were found “credible and true”; this horrible person even had his law license suspended while serving as Attorney General of Indiana as a result of the findings! Of course there’s more but I’ll end by saying that Hill was defeated in the GOP primary, so he’s out of there in 2021, but he’s still pushing this brief to get SCOTUS to allow states not to list both same-sex parents on a birth certificate. Absolutely disgusting.
Openminded
I really hate it when agencies make statements like “our system won’t allow that entry”. As if it’s that f’ing hard to tweek the system. Secondly, what happens when a child born to parents who were originally typical male dad and female mom but later the dad transitions to female? You now have a child with 2- female biological parents. Is the state going to remove the Dad’s name? Will the system allow for that entry? If you really believe birth certificates are that important, you should already have fields in place to enter biological birth mother and father (or donor source) along with additional or adoptive mother(s) or father(s). How can anyone argue that including ALL the truth is wrong?