Resource: De Boer v. Snyder

On January 23, 2012, plaintiffs April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, both of whom have individually adopted children, filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Michigan challenging the state’s ban on adoption by same-sex couples. Michigan law restricted second-parent adoption to married couples, a Catch-22 for same-sex couples, since the state excluded them from marriage. At the invitation of District Court Judge Bernard Friedman, the plaintiffs amended their Complaint to challenge the “underlying issue” of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. Judge Friedman heard argument on March 7, 2013, but delayed ruling until after the Supreme Court’s decisions in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry.