Carole Stanyar, Hazel Park resident April DeBoer’s attorney, said now is the time to recognize same-sex couples not only as parents but as worthy of marriage by the state.

“Forty states ban same-sex marriage,” she said during her opening remarks. “No other group in society has to pass a parenting competency test … Children who are separated suffer anxiety after losing one of them. Children thrive when they are more secure.”

Defense attorney and assistant Attorney General Kristin Heyse spoke on behalf of the state. She said the people in Michigan already decided that they don’t want same-sex marriage when they struck down same-sex marriage during a vote in 2004.

“Marriage is a right the state has decided on,” she said. “The people of Michigan have decided that marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Heyse said because same-sex marriage has only been legalized in states since 2004, there is not enough information available to know if same-sex couples make better parents.

“The fact of the matter is, men and women are different. They are not interchangeable,” she said. “It’s too new to know how a change in the family dynamic would change the institution of marriage.”

The court took a brief morning recess at about 11 a.m. The prosecution called Dr. David Brodinsky, a former psychology professor at Rutgers University with research interests in adoption, to the stand first.