Michigan Couple's Supreme Court Brief In Gay Marriage Case Focuses On 'Injury To Children'
By Khalil AlHajal | [email protected]
on February 27, 2015 at 1:03 PM, updated February 27, 2015 at 2:47 PM
HAZEL PARK, MI -- A Supreme Court brief filed Friday by lawyers for a Michigan couple challenging the state's gay marriage ban focuses on children, arguing that preventing same-sex parents from marrying leaves kids vulnerable to economic and psychological harm.
Ann Arbor attorney Carol Stanyar said the brief was filed Friday along with documents from plaintiffs in similar cases out of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
"Injury to children is certainly one of the things we're going to emphasize and have emphasized in our brief," said Stanyar.
"... These laws cause serious, persistent, wide-ranging injury to children in particular. The most important thing for our petitioners: The bans make children legal strangers to a mother who has raised them from birth. In Michigan, the law is clear, a child has no right of custody or even visitation with the non-legal parent. Children lose important economic protections. Health insurance, social security, disability benefits, survivors' benefits... The bans also bring psychological injury to children. Many of them feel non-permanence in their relationship with that second parent."
(Update: View the full brief here.)
Response briefs from the defendant states are due March 27.
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http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2015/02/michigan_couples_supreme_court.html
