US: Judge could rule in case challenging Michigan’s equal marriage ban
A federal judge could on Wednesday rule on a ban on equal marriage which was placed in the station constitution by voters.
District Judge Bernard Friedman,in March privately postponed on making a ruling in the case which challenges the ban on equal marriage and adoption saying he wanted to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on DOMA and Prop 8. in July he accepted the case.
The judge had been set to hear arguments in the case of a lesbian couple, each with their own child, who wanted to adopt each other’s. He had advised last year that they pose a legal challenge to a 2004 amendment banning equal marriage in the state, to test whether or not it was constitutional.
Two Detroit nurses, Jayne Rowse, 48, and April DeBoer, 41, have lived together for over six years with three children, Nolan, 4, Jacob, 3, and Ryanne, 3, a girl, who were unable to be raised by their birth parents.
The two boys were adopted by Rowse, and DeBoer adopted Ryanne, seperately, however under state law, it is impossible for the couple to adopt each other’s children because they aren’t married.
“As a matter of law, there cannot be ‘separate but equal’ based on sexual orientation; as a matter of fact, there is no such thing,” the couple said in court papers.
The US Supreme Court in July struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA), and California’s Proposition 8.
