Michigan’s policies regarding same-sex couples, including a ban on benefits for the partners of public employees, continually have been challenged by trials claiming the state’s stance violates the U.S. Constitution.
One of the trials will begin Tuesday morning. It involves two Hazel Park mothers of three, April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, who originally sued the state for the right to legally be recognized as the mothers of each other’s adopted children.
Judgment on the issues was deferred in October by U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman, citing factual issues.
Same-sex marriage is illegal under a provision in the Michigan constitution, which was approved by 59 percent of voters in 2004.
Former Lansing residents Kent and Diego Love-Ramirez have publicly expressed sadness that both of them are not legally recognized as their son’s father.
Coupled with the fact that their marriage is legal in other states but not in Michigan, this prompted them to leave the state less than two months ago and move to Minnesota.
Kent Love-Ramirez said the couple has since filed the joint adoption papers for their son, Lucas.
“We left Michigan in order to protect my family,” Kent Love-Ramirez said, citing concern for their son. He grew up in the Lansing area, went to MSU and worked for the university. He now works for the University of Minnesota.
The Snyder administration has repeatedly filed motions to dismiss or pass judgement in the cases.
Attorneys for the state have claimed the motivations to uphold the ban are fiscal.
A recent survey conducted by MSU indicated views in Michigan have shifted, with 56 percent now in favor of marriage equality.
The state’s adoption code also states than in order to jointly adopt a child, the prospective parents must be legally married, restricting same-sex couples from joint adoption.
Daniel Ray, a Thomas M. Cooley Law School professor in constitutional law, said Friedman told the plaintiffs they should expand their case to Michigan’s marriage ban, which would render the adoption code barriers moot, something he considered “an extraordinary move for a federal judge.”
Ray and another faculty member at the school have submitted a brief to the court arguing in favor of the plaintiffs.
He cited a long line of U.S. Supreme Court precedents that he said indicate Michigan’s policies violate the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment when applying a level of scrutiny to the policies known as rational basis review.
“It’s like the state has tried to make an entire class of people invisible to its laws, and that’s the sort of thing the Supreme Court simply isn’t going to allow,” Ray said.
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