The glorious spate of rulings in favor of marriage equality last week is also leading to an expansion of adoption and second-parent adoption rights.
The state of Utah has said it will begin to issue amended birth certificates to same-sex couples wanting second-parent adoptions. It had intervened to stop petitions for four such adoptions while it waited to hear the outcome of its attempt to maintain a ban on marriage for same-sex couples. Now that it has lost its marriage appeal, it will no longer — and, as far as I understand, can no longer — stand in the way.
Over in Virginia, the new legality of marriage for same-sex couples means that they may now do second-parent adoptions or jointly adopt — a right previously reserved to married couples, who by definition, were different-sex couples.
And in North Carolina, Chantelle and Marcie Fisher-Borne, one of the plaintiff families who challenged the marriage ban, yesterday filed petitions in Durham County court for second-parent adoptions of each others’ biological child.
We’ll likely see more stories like this in the coming weeks as the rest of the new marriage-equality states clarify how marriage laws relate to parenting laws, since the two, while related, are not identical. We should also remember that different-sex parents do not need to be married in order to be recognized as legal parents to their children, and neither should same-sex couples. Nevertheless, the ballooning increase in marriage equality states, and the expansion of adoption rights that is following from it, are great news for the same-sex parents who wish to secure their families’ legal bonds that way.
On a related, if unexpected, note, a new species of snail has been named in honor of marriage equality and diverse families. The BBC reports that scientists recently decided that a hermaphrodite land snail found in Taiwan was a distinct species. They named it Aegista diversifamilia, “to remember the struggle for the recognition of same-sex marriage rights.” Kind of puts a damper on any same-sex couple who wants to serve escargot at their wedding, though.