INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A judge has ordered Indiana to list both spouses in lesbian marriages as parents on their children’s birth certificates and end what she calls its “discriminatory” practice of listing only the birth mother.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled Thursday in favor of eight lesbian couples who sued the state and county health departments. Pratt said the state’s conduct was unconstitutional.
Pratt wrote that there’s “no conceivable important governmental interest” to justify treating female spouses of artificially-inseminated birth mothers different from male spouses of artificially-inseminated birth mothers.
An attorney for the couples, Karen Celestino-Horseman, says the rulings puts the families “on the same level as opposite-sex couples.”
A spokesman for the state’s attorneys says they’re reviewing the ruling.
