SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah Supreme Court has lifted a stay on adoptions involving same-sex couples.
In an order issued Thursday afternoon, the state's top court ordered the Utah Department of Health to begin issuing amended birth certificates with the names of same-sex couples as parents.
Read the order by the Utah Supreme Court here:
Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Utah's appeal of the Amendment 3 case, the Utah Attorney General's Office abandoned its fight of adoptions involving same-sex couples. The cases had gotten highly contentious, with parents going after the state for intervening in their adoption proceedings, which launched when a federal judge struck down Utah's ban on same-sex marriage.
Some parents had camped out in the lobby of the Utah Department of Health for amended birth certificates, only to be turned away while the state appealed Amendment 3.
Thursday's order by the Utah Supreme Court presumably applies to all same-sex couples seeking to adopt. The case stems from a lawsuit brought by four legally married couples and the ACLU who sued the state after Governor Gary Herbert ordered state agencies not to recognize the marriages.
