By Sam Favate
North Carolina recently made headlines when voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as strictly between a man and a woman.
Now, a lawsuit is looking to change the state’s adoption laws, which prevent unmarried couples — including same-sex couples — from adopting their partners’ children.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit last week on behalf of six same-sex couples and their children, seeking to have the state’s adoption laws declared unconstitutional and to obtain second-parent adoptions for their kids, according to CNN.
A second-parent adoption is when someone in relationship with the legal parent of a child adopts the child, while the first parent retains his or her rights. In 2010, the North Carolina Supreme Court banned second-parent adoptions in the state, CNN noted.
The ACLU’s lawsuit says that second-parent adoptions are the only way a family in North Carolina with gay or lesbian parents can establish a legal relationship with their children, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.
However, opponents maintain that the state has an interest in keeping the law as it is.