ACLU files suit against NC, calls same-sex adoption laws unconstitutional

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Several gay couples are suing the government, saying the state’s adoption laws are unfair and unconstitutional.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of six people who want to legally adopt their same-sex partners’ children.

The lawsuit says a partner in a same-sex couple should be allowed to legally adopt the other partner’s children, but those kinds of adoptions have been illegal in North Carolina for two years.

Lee Knight Caffery loves spending summer afternoons with her 3-year-old son at their Charlotte home, but like many mothers, her mind keeps racing through worst-case scenarios.

“It’s emotionally draining,” she said. "It's just sad."

Boseman v. Jarrell, the landmark state Supreme Court case decided in 2010, banned second-parent adoptions, meaning Knight's partner, Dana, has no legal right to keep Lee Knight's children in the case of a contested will.

“She was there with me through labor and delivery. She got up in the middle of the night to change diapers. She rocks our kids when they’re sick at 2 a.m.,” Lee Knight said.

If Dana Knight could adopt the two children, she would be able to make emergency medical decisions on their behalf, and the children could not be moved to biological relatives in the event of Lee Knight’s death.

“And that’s a very real possibility,” Lee Knight said.

Lee Knight said she just wants the state to see her partner the same way her children do.

“She is no less a mother than I am, in every sense of the word, except in the eyes of the law,” Lee Knight said.

However, a spokesman for Charlotte’s Catholic Diocese said Wednesday evening that the church will continue to stand against same-sex adoptions.

“The church remains opposed to gay marriage and same-sex adoptions because of the necessity of maintaining traditional family units for children,” he said.

The church spokesman did say it has not yet had time to fully review the ACLU’s lawsuit.

The government will have to respond to the federal lawsuit in the next few weeks, but there is no timetable yet for when the case will be heard in court.

In 2010, the North Carolina Supreme Court maintained it lacked the legal jurisdiction to decide if second-parent adoptions for gay couples was constitutional.

WSOC