“We’re moving in the right direction, but it’s not the final answer.”
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After widespread backlash, he reversed his decision today. The 9-month-old baby will remain with foster parents April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce of Price, Utah, for now.
Judge Johansen has scheduled on the foster child case at the end of November and in December as well.
The baby had been with the couple for three months when Johansen cited research saying heterosexuals provide healthier environments for children. Spokeswoman Ashley Sumner said the agency wants to keep the child with Peirce and Hoagland.
The couple plan to fight the ruling.
Governor Herbert added that the judge should not “inject his own personal beliefs and feelings in superseding the law”. Herbert said the “safety and welfare of the child” is the top responsibility of DCFS. “He may not like the law, but he should follow the law”.
“To be honest I was angry, and just thinking about, ‘What are we going to do next?'” Peirce said. “Because it’s in the best interest of the child”. Johansen is precluded by judicial rules from discussing pending cases, Utah courts spokesperson Nancy Volmer has said. A 2013 “Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission Report” contained a survey of lawyers, court staff, juvenile court professionals, and jurors. They overwhelmingly recommended Johansen be retained to the bench.
“It’s not fair, and it’s not right, and it hurts me very badly, because I have done nothing wrong”, Hoagland told CNN affiliate KUTV.
“It’s definitely nice to know we not only have the community behind us, but the nation”, Peirce said. He goes on to speculate that the original ruling was both unconstitutional and harmful to the baby and that may have encouraged the judge to act quickly. In 1997, he slapped a 16-year-old boy in his courthouse, and in 2012 he told the mother of a 13-year-old girl that he would shorten her daughter’s sentence if she cut off the girl’s ponytail in public court. “He said through his research he had found out that kids in homosexual homes don’t do as well as they do in heterosexual homes”.
This isn’t the first time Judge Johansen’s actions have raised concerns and landed him in a controversy. DCFS Director Brent Platt called the foster parents a “good family;” other DCFS workers had called the arrangement a “good fit”. Otherwise, the division plans to appeal.
The group said taking the baby from a loving home is not only discriminatory but runs counter to evidence that children grow up just as well when raised by gay parents.
The child has been in the home of a same-sex married couple since August of this year.
The original order said: “The Court cited its belief that research has shown that children are more emotionally and mentally stable when raised by a mother and father in the same home”.
This order was contrary to our recommendation to the judge, and all parties objected to the order on record. DCFS and an attorney for the couple filed motions late Thursday asking Johansen to reconsider.
This summer, following the Supreme Court’s decision, Kentucky saw a county court clerk sent to jail for contempt of court after refusing a judge’s order to sign marriage certificates for gay couples.
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Daniel Woodruff contributed to this story.
