Gay couples in NC seek legal adoption as marriages continue

Now that gay marriage is legal in North Carolina, same-sex couples took another historic step on Monday, seeking legal adoption of children who are part of newly recognized unions.

In Durham, Marcie and Chantelle Fisher-Borne, a couple of 17 years with a marriage license from Washington, D.C., filed adoption petitions shortly after the courthouse opened on Monday.

Marcie, 39, is the biological mother of the couple’s daughter Miley, who is 6. Chantelle, 39, gave birth to Elijah, 2.

Though the women have been together for both births and helped raise the children together, they worried that in medical emergencies and other dire situations, one of the other could be legally shut out from caring for a child without a formal adoption.

Meanwhile, same-sex marriages continued across the state as several lawsuits about the ban remained unresolved.

Couples fought Amendment One

Until Friday, when a federal judge in the western part of the state issued a ruling declaring the North Carolina ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional, the Fisher-Bornes had to rely on a host of legal documents to have standing in the lives of both children.

North Carolina does not allow second-parent adoptions for unmarried couples.

That was one of the reasons the Fisher-Bornes were plaintiffs on one of several lawsuits challenging the 2012 amendment to the North Carolina Constitution that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Shawn Long and Craig Johnson, Wake Forest residents who got married on Monday by a Wake County magistrate, also were part of the federal lawsuit seeking nullification of the ban because of a child in their relationship.

Johnson, a clinical program assistant at a pharmaceutical company, adopted Isaiah, a 12-year-old who came into their lives almost seven years ago as a foster child who had been permanently removed from the custody of his biological parents.

Though North Carolina laws prohibited both men from adopting Isaiah, Johnson could as a single parent.

Nevertheless, Long, an administrative coordinator with Equality NC, a gay rights advocate organization, has worried for years that he could be kept from making legal and medical decisions if something were to happen to Johnson.

They, too, plan to file a petition for second-parent adoption.

The inability to adopt has created “untold hardships on families,” the couples contended in federal court documents seeking nullification of Amendment One, which passed in May 2012 when put to a statewide vote.

Parents without legal custody had difficulties adding their children to health insurance policies and worried what would happen if a partner died.

One court’s ruling awaited

Though U.S. District Judge William Osteen has not issued a ruling in the Fisher-Borne and Johnson-Long challenges to North Carolina’s Amendment One, U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn nullified the ban on Friday.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina filed lawsuits on behalf of the couples seeking nullification of the ban based on complaints that it discriminated against their ability to adopt legally.

On Friday, Osteen informed the parties that he was weighing a request from Phil Berger, president pro tem of the N.C. Senate, and Thom Tillis, speaker of the N.C. House, to intervene in the case.

The ACLU and Roy Cooper, the N.C. Attorney General, filed responses on Monday to questions from Osteen.

Cooper said in late July that he no longer would defend North Carolina’s gay marriage ban after a decision in the 4th Circuit of Appeals struck down a similar ban in Virginia.

Cooper said the interests of the state of North Carolina, which Berger and Tillis “seek to pursue and protect, have been appropriately represented by this Office in accordance with North Carolina Attorney General’s common law and statutory duties and obligations”

Cooper further pointed out that Cogburn, in his order last week, said nothing filed by Tillis and Berger supported their arguments that “the Attorney General has abrogated his duty .”

Marriages roll on

As the legal question lingered in Osteen’s court, couples across the state sought marriage licenses.

Carrboro Mayor Lydia Lavelle and her partner Alicia Stemper were the first same-sex couple to get a license from the Orange County Register of Deeds.

Joni Madison and Gina Kilpatrick, another couple to receive a license from Orange County, made plans for a ceremony to be performed by the Rev. Jimmy Creech, a Methodist minister from Goldsboro who was defrocked in 1999 for performing same-sex weddings.

A minister was at the office of the Durham Register of the Deeds, an arrangement by the LGBTQ Center of Durham.

In Wake County, where marriages occurred Friday night because Laura Riddick, the register of deeds there, kept her office open late to accommodate couples who waited the entire day for a federal court decision.

In addition to the 51 licenses issued on Friday in Wake County, at least 25 more licenses were issued Monday to same-sex couples.

Adoptions might take a little more time.

There can be a 90-day wait with adoptions, but because there is no standard procedure for same-sex couples some of the details are being worked out still.

“That’s next,” Long said on Monday.

Staff writers Tammy Grubb and Mark Schultz contributed to this report.

This story was originally published October 13, 2014 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Gay couples in NC seek legal adoption as marriages continue."