Germany Rejects Gay Adoption Case On Technicality

Reuters – Huffington Post – February 22, 2014

By Norbert Demuth

KARLSRUHE, Germany, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Germany’s Constitutional Court on Friday threw out a case to grant gay couples the right to jointly adopt a child on a technicality, but gay rights activists noted that a ruling by the same court last February effectively allowed it.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservatives have been accused of dragging their feet over gay rights – leaving it to judges of the Constitutional Court to grant same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples.

Presently in Germany gay marriage is not allowed and gay couples cannot jointly adopt a child.

Last February however the Constitutional Court granted gay individuals the right to adopt a child already adopted by their civil partner, under a practice known as ‘successive adoption’.

A prior ban on the practice violated the principle of equal treatment regardless of sexual orientation, it said in that ruling, giving the government until July 2014 to change the law. Merkel’s new right-left coalition has pledged to do so.

The court also ruled last year that the government must treat same-sex couples on a par with heterosexual couples in taxation law.

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