Adoption and Parenting

Today, Lambda Legal and 75 national and state civil rights, child welfare, and faith organizations submitted a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Secretary Alex Azar urging him not to grant South Carolina’s request for an exemption from federal nondiscrimination law for faith-based, government-funded child welfare providers.

Today, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed SB 1140, a license-to-discriminate bill that would allow taxpayer-funded child welfare agencies to reject foster or adoptive parents based upon the agency’s religious beliefs.

Today, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that married same-sex couples should have the same parenting rights as different sex couples in a Lambda Legal case on behalf of Chris Strickland, a non-biological lesbian mother who was denied legal parentage for children she and her now ex-wife planned for and raised together.

The Supreme Court of Hawai’i today heard oral argument in the case of C.C. v. D.D., in which Lambda Legal is urging the Court to uphold a lower court ruling that, just like different-sex spouses, same-sex spouses must be treated as the presumed parents of children born during their marriage, with equal rights and equal responsibilities, including legal parentage and child support.