Commentary

2 gay foster parents hope Mich. ruling goes their way

April DeBoer, second from left, sits with her adopted daughter Ryanne, 3, left, and Jayne Rowse, fourth from left, and her adopted sons Jacob, 3, middle, and Nolan, 4, right, at their Michigan home.

DETROIT — Michigan knows two things about April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse. One, they are superb foster parents, certified by the state and especially qualified to care for special-needs babies. They may have saved several lives.

Within a year, they accepted three perilously sick infants who were born premature, drug-addicted, and with multiple physical and mental problems. They were not all expected to live.

Ms. DeBoer is a nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit, and Ms. Rowse is an emergency room nurse. Today, 4-year-old Nolan and 3-year-old Ryanne and Jacob are happy and thriving.

The two nurses fell in love with all of them. So much so that they wanted to adopt them.

Yet Michigan won’t let them. Because the other thing the state knows is that the two nurses are a lesbian couple. And Michigan forbids adoptions by same-sex couples.

But that may be about to change. In less than two weeks, a federal judge may issue a ruling in a case brought by the two nurses that could overturn both Michigan’s adoption law and a state constitutional amendment that forbids same-sex marriage.

Such a ruling in the adoption case could signal a major change that may affect other states, if the U.S. Supreme Court agrees. It has been a long legal battle.

“Think of the insanity of this,” said Dana Nessel, a former prosecutor who for two years has represented the nurses in an effort to overturn what she sees as a highly unfair law.

“The state certifies them as foster parents — as a couple,” she said. “They send special-needs children who otherwise might not have survived and who nobody wanted. But they can’t adopt them.”

Actually, the children have been adopted. Michigan does allow adoptions by single parents. When they realized the law wouldn’t allow an unmarried couple to adopt, the nurses took action.

Ms. DeBoer, 42, legally adopted Ryanne; Ms. Rowse, 48, adopted Nolan and Jacob. But the couple soon realized that if one of them were to die, the other would have no right to that woman’s children, who could be taken from them.

So they went to Ms. Nessel, who, after a decade prosecuting child abuse cases for Wayne County, had gone into private practice. Though her practice includes everything from criminal rights to family law, she has become more involved in civil rights cases.

“My dream is to live in a state as progressive as Kentucky,” she said during an interview last week. Not that the Bluegrass State is especially enlightened, “but when it comes to adoption rights, Michigan is one of the five worst states in the country,” Ms. Nessel said.

The lawyer filed suit on behalf of the nurses in January, 2012. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman, who is not known as a constitutional liberal.

Initially, they were attempting only to get the state’s adoption law ruled unconstitutional. But the judge suggested the nurses broaden their suit to include Michigan’s 2004 state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Last March, Judge Friedman indicated he was going to defer his ruling until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on two gay-rights cases.

Those rulings came in June. The high court essentially held that same-sex marriages were legal in California, and said same-sex married couples anywhere were entitled to federal benefits.

The judge then said he would reconvene and hear motions for summary judgment — where each side basically asks him to dismiss the opponent’s case without a trial — on Oct. 16.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage and adoptions. He filed a brief remarkable for its stridency: “One of the paramount purposes of marriage in Michigan … is, and always has been, to regulate sexual relationships between men and women so that the unique procreative capacity of such relationships benefits rather than harms society.”

The idea of the state “regulating sexual relationships” raised eyebrows among even some conservatives, “What about men or women who are infertile?“ a blogger wrote.

Ms. Nessel hopes Judge Friedman promptly will declare both the adoption statute and Michigan’s marriage amendment unconstitutional. Federal law, after all, trumps state law.

Any such rulings would be appealed, a process that could take months, if not years. Higher courts also would likely issue stays pending appeal, meaning the laws would not change immediately.

But Ms. Nessel thinks the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled that in the end, her clients are likely to win.

● Meanwhile, back in Lansing: The Michigan House is expected to vote soon on a bill that would allow private adoption agencies to discriminate against gays and other potential parents on “religious grounds,” even if they receive state funding — and even if same-sex marriage were ever to become legal.

Supporters of the legislation, primarily the Michigan Catholic Conference, say it is designed to protect “religious liberty rights.”

But opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say it would amount to “state-sponsored discrimination.”

If the measure passes, and is signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder, the ACLU is likely to file suit against the bill on constitutional grounds.

Jack Lessenberry, a member of the journalism faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and The Blade’s ombudsman, writes on issues and people in Michigan.

Contact him at: omblade@aol.com