Judge reverses order on lesbian foster pair
Utah judge reverses decision; hearing on custody ahead.
A Utah baby that had been ordered removed from a married gay couple can stay with them — for now.
— A Utah judge reversed his decision to take a baby girl from her lesbian foster parents and place her with a heterosexual couple after his ruling caused widespread backlash, but child welfare officials say the change could be temporary.
In an order released Friday, Judge Scott Johansen allowed the 9-monthold baby to stay for now with April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, a married couple from the city of Price.
It comes after Johansen said Tuesday that the baby should be removed from the couple’s home within a week. Utah officials and the couple filed challenges demanding he rescind the order.
Ashley Sumner, spokeswoman for the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, said the agency is cautiously optimistic and relieved. But Johansen’s decision still leaves open the possibility that he could order the child removed at a Dec. 4 custody hearing, she said.
“We’re moving in the right direction, but it’s not the final answer,” Sumner said.
In his first ruling, Johansen mentioned research that said children raised by heterosexual families do better and that “same-sex marriages have double the rate of instability as heterosexual marriages.”
That language was crossed out in Johansen’s new order. It now says the court merely cited concerns that research has shown children are more emotionally and mentally stable when raised by a mother and father in the same home.
The American Psychological Association has said there’s no scientific basis that gay couples are unfit parents based on sexual orientation.
Jim Hunnicutt, a lawyer for the couple, said they are happy the judge reversed the order so quickly. “These two people are excellent, wonderful parents,” he said. “They love the child very much, and they are very optimistic that the child will remain in their care.”
Hunnicutt said he didn’t know what caused the judge to change his mind but called the initial decision a constitutional violation and harmful to the baby. “What I have to assume is that when the law was put right in front of his face, he realized that he had made a mistake, and he wanted to correct it and do the right thing and do what was constitutional,” the attorney said.
Hunnicutt said his clients were angry after Tuesday’s hearing but were encouraged by the outpouring of support in the days since.
Child welfare officials are working to keep the family together and hope the public outcry sends a strong message to the judge, Sumner said.
Hoagland, a stay-athome mother, and Peirce, a paramedic, are among a group of same-sex married couples who were allowed to become foster parents in Utah after last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made gay marriage legal across the country.
The move to take the baby away generated widespread criticism, including from national gay rights groups and Utah Gov. Gary Herbert. The Republican said Thursday that Johansen should follow the law and not inject his personal beliefs into the decision.