SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 12 (UPI) — A Utah judge ordered a married same-sex couple to give up their foster daughter because of their sexuality, saying the toddler would be better off raised by a heterosexual couple.
Judge Scott Johansen told Beckie Peirce, 34, and April Hoagland, 38, he had research to show children do better when raised in a heterosexual home and said the 1-year-old girl they planned to adopt would fare better in a different home. The order in the central Utah city of Price raised concerns among the state’s child welfare agency.
“We love her and she loves us, and we haven’t done anything wrong,” Peirce said Wednesday. “And the law, as I understand it, reads that any legally married couple can foster and adopt.”
The couple, legally married and approved as foster parents in Utah earlier this year, said they have raised the girl for about three months. The biological mother asked the women to adopt her. The ruling came during a hearing to terminate the biological mother’s parental rights.
Attorney Mandie Torgerson, who represents the baby’s biological mother, said Johansen said there is “a myriad” of studies that support his ruling. Torgerson said the biological mother is upset and plans to appeal the decision in early December.
The Human Rights Commission condemned the judge’s actions, which will take effect in seven days.
“Removing a child from a loving home simply because the parents are LGBT is outrageous, shocking, and unjust,” the group said in a written statement. “It also flies in the face of overwhelming evidence that children being raised by same-sex parents are just as healthy and well-adjusted as those with different-sex parents. At a time when so many children in foster care need loving homes, it is sickening to think that a child would be taken from caring parents who planned to adopt.”
This isn’t the first time Johansen has been in the public eye. In 1997, the Utah Judicial Conduct Commission reprimanded him for “demeaning the judicial office” after slapping a 16-year-old boy who became belligerent in court. In 2012, he famously ordered a woman to cut off her 13-year-old’s ponytail in court as punishment for the teen cutting the hair of a 3-year-old.
The most recent situation caught the attention of Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.
Being a good parent has nothing to do with sexual orientation—thousands of families prove that. https://t.co/xQLh25RAYR— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 12, 2015
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