Same-sex parenting rights under scrutiny in Ohio Supreme Court case set for oral argument this month
A case regarding parental rights in a same-sex relationship will be heard by the Ohio Supreme Court this month. It could test not only Ohio law but the federal Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage.
The state’s highest court will hold oral arguments in a case appealed from the First District Court of Appeals to decide the parental rights of a woman who was in a relationship with the children’s mother when the kids were born. However, the couple was never married, and adoptive rights to the children were not established.
Priya Shahani and Carmen Edmonds were in a relationship for more than a decade, and had thoughts of getting married. But the bulk of their relationship occurred before the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, an Ohio-based case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Edmonds argues the couple travelled to Boston with plans to get married, but decided against it, due to the fact that Ohio would not recognize the marriage at that time. The state also does not recognize common-law marriages entered into after 1991.
During the course of the relationship, Shahani had three children using a sperm donor that court documents say was chosen because he matched Edmonds’ nationality.
Shahani and Edmonds sought to legally dissolve their relationship after 11 years, an agreement that included scheduled parenting time for Edmonds, but the children still held hyphenated names.
It wasn’t until after Shahani removed the hyphenate from the children’s names and filed to terminate their shared-custody agreement that the case started. Edmonds argued that the couple’s “marriage-like relationship” gave her rights to the children.
A lower court awarded Edmonds “companionship time,” but otherwise effectively ruled against both women. It refused to terminate the shared custody agreement while also not allowing a “parentage” decree for Edmonds.
When both went to the First District Court of Appeals for answers, Edmonds brought up the Obergefell case legalizing same-sex marriage.
Edmonds argued that under that decision, parental rights statutes apply in this case as they would for married couples. The appellate court said the trial court needed to hold a hearing to decide whether the couple would have been married if the same-sex marriage decision had been in place.
Ohio law only recognizes parents if they are married, have a biological connection, or have legally adopted the child, something that requires marriage in the case of the “second parent.”
The ACLU of Ohio said state parentage laws, combined with the Obergefell decision, “provide a pathway for Ms. Edmonds and other non-biological, non-adoptive, same-sex parents who were unable to have their marriages legally recognized in the state of Ohio during the course of their relationship to establish legal parentage and confer the accompanying rights and responsibilities of parenthood.”
Shahani noted that she made “the major child-related decisions” including expenses and medical needs. She told the state supreme court that giving Edmonds parental rights goes against both state law and the Obergefell decision, even if state statutes were looked at with gender-neutral language.
“This case is about whether Ohio’s courts can reinvent history as a mechanism for seizing a fit parent’s constitutionally protected rights,” attorneys for Shahani wrote in an October brief to the court.
In a state where common-law marriage isn’t recognized, the attorneys said the state constitution, as well as the U.S. Constitution, doesn’t allow state courts to “manufacture an unlicensed marriage into existence.”
“The foundation upon which a ‘would have been married’ standard rests is a hypothetical injury that the individual may have been denied a marriage license if they had applied for one, or the state may not have recognized a marriage had there been an out-of-state marriage,” attorneys told the state supreme court.
Shahani refutes Edmonds’ claim that the two travelled to Boston to get married, then changed their minds. But even if that were true, the legal result should be no different, she argues.
“Even in Ms. Edmonds’s version of events, she would not have been married to Ms. Shahani when the insemination occurred, and therefore would not have parental rights,” court documents stated, citing a state statute regarding artificial insemination of a married woman.
The law, effective as of March 2001, specifies a woman “and her husband” must sign a written consent to the insemination for the “non-spousal artificial insemination” to occur.
The case was mentioned as one of the “state oral arguments to watch” this month by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU. The center identifies “prominent or interesting state court cases,” which this month include the Ohio parental rights case, along with a challenge to Wyoming’s abortion ban, an appeal to New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions caps, the process of electing appellate judges in Arizona and voter power over zoning changes in an area of Georgia where descendants of slaves have historically taken up residence.
Oral arguments in the case will be heard on April 22 by the Ohio Supreme Court.