Lawmakers reject bill addressing adoptions by gay couples

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — An effort to strike parts of Utah law requiring adoption and foster care officials to give preferences to heterosexual couples was rejected Wednesday as several lawmakers argued the measure goes beyond last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage.

Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, sponsors the measure and argues that by changing language such as "man" and "wife" to gender-neutral terms such as "spouse," Utah is falling in line with the court's ruling. Without the change, she said Utah could see lawsuits from same-sex couples that are looking to adopt or foster children.

"For us to deny them a right because of who they love is ridiculous," she said.

But several conservative lawmakers on a House Judiciary Committee said Wednesday that the high court's ruling last year only declared who can get married.

"States are required to give gay couples marriage licenses. They are not required to give gay couples children," said Rep. Merrill Nelson, R-Grantsville.

Nelson said he wasn't saying gay couples should be barred from being adoptive or foster parents or that they can't be good parents, but that Utah "remains free to express a preference for man-woman marriages in the placement of children."

The committee voted 5-5 to keep the bill from advancing, though it could be revived later.

Tuesday's meeting followed a contentious hearing on the issue two weeks ago, where lawmakers decided to adjourn without voting that night. The abrupt move followed critical comments from same-sex marriage opponents and intense questioning from one lawmaker as to who asked state officials to look at changing Utah's law.

Officials with the Utah attorney general's office and state child welfare division testified that the change is needed, but several conservative speakers urged lawmakers to oppose it, arguing children do better in homes with heterosexual parents.

That's something a small town Utah judge asserted last fall, when he ordered a foster child be removed from a lesbian couple and placed with a heterosexual couple. The judge cited the child's well-being as the reason for his order, but after an intense outcry and concerns from state welfare officials, the judge reversed his decision and took himself off the case.

On the other side of the issue, two Republican lawmakers have introduced bills that seek to keep the preference for heterosexual parents and assert that Utah has the right to set its own laws about "domestic relations," including those related to child welfare and adoptions.

Neither has had a hearing yet.

Douglas NeJaime, faculty director of the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, said that the U.S. Supreme Court did not explicitly address the issue of same-sex adoptions in its ruling last year. But the court did declare that same-sex couples have a right to marriage and all the rights and benefits enjoyed by married heterosexual couples.

NeJaime said a state having a blanket preference for married heterosexual couples over married gay couples would very likely be found unconstitutional.

By Michelle L. Price, AP. Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The Gayly - 2/27/2016 @ 1:11 p.m. CST