North Carolina Supreme Court Voids Second Parent Adoptions

Today the North Carolina Supreme Court voided second-parent adoptions in the state. This ruling affects all second parent adoptions in the state, but has the biggest impact on same-sex couples. The Supreme Court indicated that they believe second parent adoption is an issue that the legislature needs to address because current North Carolina state law neither allows nor forbids second parent adoption.

It is unlikely the new legislature will pass legislation that would help LGBT families. The Republican legislators who will form the majority in the new legislature in January 2011 indicated they would seek a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. In addition, several Republican leaders have also called for a ban on adoptions by LGBT families.

This case received a lot of media attention because it involved the second parent adoption by the first openly lesbian North Carolina state senator, Julia Boseman. Her term ends this month, and she did not seek re-election.

IAC believes the sexual orientation of adoptive parents is irrelevant in an adoption, and therefore all couples should be able to adopt. We encourage couples, in states where it is not possible to adopt as a couple (there may be numerous reasons other than sexual orientation that a couple could not adopt together), to do a second parent adoption. We do this because it is in the best interest of the child for both parental figures to have legal rights to the child.

Any IAC parents who may be affected by this ruling are encouraged to email me at: awrixon@adoptionhelp.org