Hoagland and Peirce were allowed to become foster parents after the U.S. Supreme Court made gay marriage legal across the country this summer.
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The couple is already raising Peirce’s two biological children and said they have been asked by the girl’s biological mother to adopt her.
Beckie Stewart Peirce and her wife April Benedict Hoagland said in interviews they were approved by the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) to foster the tot, but the girl was ordered to be removed from their custody because she would fare better with parents of both sexes.
Hoagland told KUTV that Johansen, a juvenile court judge in Utah’s Seventh District, said “through his research he had found out that kids in homosexual homes don’t do as well as they do in heterosexual homes”.
If the judge does not and upholds his ruling to remove the child by Tuesday evening, DCFS says they will file an appeal.
The governor said Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services top priority is to protect the safety and welfare of the child, putting them in a home that has been vetted. As attention surrounding the case has skyrocketed, the couple has been advised not to speak publicly, Peirce’s parents said.
Johansen could not be reached for comment on Thursday but a court spokeswoman confirmed to AFP he had issued a ruling in the case, which is sealed because it concerns a juvenile. They’d been taking care of her for three months. “It’s not fair, and it’s not right, and it hurts me really badly because I haven’t done anything wrong”. “He may not like the law, but he should follow the law”, Fox 13 reports. “We don’t want to have activism of the bench in any way, shape or form”.
“As far as I understand, that was the only reason”, Platt said.
Peirce, 34, and Hoagland, 38, who live in east-central Utah, have said they have the support of DCFS, the child’s court-appointed guardian and the biological mother. But things changed sharply the next day when the Mormon church abruptly announced that children of same sex couples were not welcome and that gay married couples who are members would be excommunicated.
Herbert said Thursday that Johansen should follow the law and not inject his personal beliefs into the decision.
The ruling triggered a heated response from The Anti-Defamation League, Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union.
“We want to do what’s best for the child and make sure she’s taken care of in the way she should be”.
“Removing a child from a loving home simply because the parents are LGBT is outrageous, shocking, and unjust”, Chad Griffin, the group’s president, said in a statement. Meanwhile it continued to search for a new home for the child.
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State officials don’t keep an exact count but estimate there are a dozen or more foster parents who are married same-sex couples.
