North Carolina Supreme Court Nullifies Same Sex Adoption

On Monday, North Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that the adoption of Melissa Jarrell’s son by state Senator Julie Boseman was invalid because Durham County District Court judge waived a requirement five years ago that Jarrell had to relinquish her parental rights in the process, the News Observer reports. The adoption was approved by a lower court, but the plan allowed Boseman to become the adoptive parent while permitting Jarrell to retain her parental rights in the process. Consequently, Associate Justice Paul Newby wrote that the adoption never occurred legally since lawmakers have made clear that the biological parent must terminate a legal relationship with the child. Jarrell and Boseman, who is North Carolina’s first openly gay member of the General Assembly, had been living together when Jarrell gave birth to Jacob in 2002. A majority of justices let stand the lower court’s ruling allowing the couple to share joint custody of the child, arguing that it would be in the best interest of Jacob. However, the Supreme Court ruling eliminates a method used by same sex couples to adopt – referred to as second parent adoptions – which have been granted in both Durham and Orange counties in recent years. Newby, who wrote the majority ruling, said that “If our uniform court system is to be preserved, a new form of adoption cannot be made available in some counties but not all.” According to Michelle Connell, an attorney and chairwoman of the family law section of the North Carolina Bar Association, for two-parent adoptions to occur by parents of the same sex (granting inheritance and other rights to the child) either same sex marriage would have to be created in North Carolina or the adoption law would need to be amended.