The Gavel outside the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original article.)
The Ohio chapter of a national social worker’s group jumped in on a case that asks the Ohio Supreme Court to look at the state’s parentage laws from the perspective of same-sex couples.
The case involves a former couple, Priya Shahani and Carmen Edmonds, who had three children during the course of their 11-year relationship, all of whom were carried by Shahani, with the use of a sperm donor chosen based on his similarity to Edmonds’ nationality.
Their relationship pre-dated the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Ohio case where the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Ultimately, the couple decided not to marry “because they knew their marriage would not be recognized in Ohio,” court documents stated.
But the children all carried hyphenated names for both mothers, even after the two entered into a legal agreement to dissolve their “marriage like relationship.” That legal agreement included a schedule for parenting time.
Later on, Shahani changed the children’s last names to remove “Edmonds” and filed legal motions to terminate their shared custody agreement and visitation. Edmonds responded with requests for custody and parentage rights.
Shahani claimed after the relationship ended she “continued to make the major child-related decisions, covered all expenses and handled medical needs,” and the children “generally stayed with Ms. Edmonds sporadically.”
Ohio law causes issues in the case, because the couple was never married and Edmonds can’t be legally recognized as a parent under Ohio law, which requires biological connection or legal adoption. Adoption was not an option because marriage is required for a “second-parent adoption” under Ohio law.
“Ohio’s parentage laws, in conjunction with the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Obergefell v. Hodges, do, however provide a pathway for Ms. Edmonds and other non-biological, non-adoptive, same-sex parents who were unable to have their marriages legally recognized in the state of Ohio during the course of their relationship to establish legal parentage and confer the accompanying rights and responsibilities of parenthood,” the ACLU of Ohio said in the brief to the Ohio Supreme Court, along with the National Association of Social Workers, including its Ohio chapter.
A trial court ruled against terminating the shared custody agreement, awarding Edmonds “companionship time” with the children, but also would not issue a “parentage” decree to Edmonds, leading them both to appeal to the First District Court of Appeals.
On appeal, Edmonds argued that because Obergefell was now in effect, the court could apply statutes for parental rights used with regard to married couples, since the couple would have been married if it had been allowed in their state.
The appellate court ruled that the trial court needed to hold a hearing to determine if the former couple “would have been married” if Obergefell had forced Ohio to allow same-sex marriage.
In appealing to the Ohio Supreme Court, attorneys for Shahani said a state court “does not have the authority to disregard Ohio’s statute banning common-law marriage and order a person into an unlicensed and manufactured marriage,” nor can a court “backdate that ‘marriage’ to rewrite history.”
With the case in the hands of the state supreme court, the NASW and the ACLU of Ohio see a way forward where relationships and impacts on children can be fully explored with regard to Ohio law.
The groups said the Ohio Supreme Court “now has the opportunity to advance the best interest of the children of same-sex parents in Ohio whose relationship pre-dated Obergefell, thus protecting their mental and emotional wellbeing.”
“Ohio’s own parentage statutes recognize the preference for two parents, and courts routinely acknowledge that a child’s best interest is served through the involvement and support of two loving parents,” the ACLU wrote in the brief.
The brief also cites scientific evidence confirming “that children develop significant emotional and psychological attachment bonds due to parental-figure-and-child interactions,” without regard for “biological connection or legal status.”
Evidence present in the case before it arrived at the state’s highest court also show the fact that Edmonds had no biological connection to the children “has made no difference in her ability to form attachment bonds and connect with the children in the same way as Ms. Shahani,” the court brief stated.
The NASW said “potentially devastating” harm could be done with the separation of the children from a parental figure, and argued courts should “take special care” when discussing these types of decisions.
“In short, giving non-biological, same-sex partners legal parental status with respect to the children they have helped bring into the world and raise represents an important step toward fostering the stability and health of such children, and gives these children a better chance of growing up emotionally health and strong,” the group said in its brief.
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