Utah Attorney General Makes Gay Adoption Harder

HuffPost Gay Voices

It is more difficult for newly married same-sex couples in Utah to adopt, according to lawyers handling such cases, after the attorney general on Monday began urging judges to reject adoption applications from same-sex couples.

“It feels terrible,” said Kathy Harbin, who married her partner of nine years in Salt Lake City last December, a few days after a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. “The state acts like, if it puts all of these things in place that stop us, there won’t be any gay parents. I don’t think they know that there are thousands of us who already have children and all they’re doing is making it harder for us to give them all the things that parents want to give their kids.”

Harbin and Michelle Call wedded with the hope that Harbin could adopt the two young boys the couple is raising together. But less than two weeks later, the Supreme Court agreed to the state’s request to stop same-sex marriages until an appeals court hears the case in April. In the meantime, nearly 1,400 couples who wed in those weeks are stuck in legal limbo — uncertain whether the state will eventually recognize their unions.

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