A lesbian couple
who have been raising a foster child since December 2007
are being blocked from adopting her by the child's legal
advocate, who argues that she would be better off with
a "traditional" married couple.
A lesbian couple
who have been raising a foster child since December 2007
are being blocked from adopting her by the child's legal
advocate, who argues that she would be better off with
a "traditional" married couple. Kathryn Kutil and
Cheryl Hess will go before the West Virginia supreme
court March 11 to appeal a November decision by a lower
court, according to the Associated Press.
The child was
born to a drug-addicted mother last year and had
experienced narcotic withdrawal following her birth. The
Charleston Daily Mail reports that she was
found with cocaine, opiates, and benzodiazepines in her
system. Fayette County circuit judge Paul Blake
terminated the biological mother's parental rights; no
other blood relatives of the child could be found.
Since Hess and Kutil took the child in, raising her for
nearly a year, the Department of Health and Human
Resources moved to let the couple adopt the girl. They
were also deemed fit as parents two years ago when
they started fostering a girl who is now 12.
However, the
court-appointed legal advocate, Fayetteville attorney Thomas
Fast, filed a motion January 24 to remove the younger girl
from Hess and Kutil's care because she was living in a
"homosexual household." In November the judge affirmed
that DHHR had failed to seek a "traditional most
family-like setting with a mother and father."
According to the order, DHHR can place a child in
"nontraditional" settings only after a search is exhausted
to place the child in a "traditional" home. Blake has
since ordered that the child be moved to a second
foster home, but the supreme court ordered her to
return to Kutil and Hess.
Current West
Virginia law allows single people and married couples to
adopt children, with no specifications for same-sex couples.
Kutil and Hess argue that the lower court's decision
infringes on their rights and is the gateway for other
groups to lose adoptive rights.
"What I can say
about these two women is that they are far and above,
based on my experience in dealing with them," their attorney
Anthony Ciliberti told the Daily Mail. "They
are far and above conceivably the best foster parents
we have in this county." (Advocate.com)
Click here to follow The Advocate on Twitter.
Page 1 of 1