No Parental Rights at End of Same-Sex Relationship: Court

Lansing, MI — The first anniversary of the watershed Supreme Court ruling giving same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples just passed, but a woman whose same-sex partner relationship broke up in 2014doesn’t have parental rights to a child born to her partner in 2008, the Michigan Court of Appeals said Wednesday.

Michelle Lake and Kerri Putnam were together for 13 years. Lake, who was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said that if the couple had been married, she would have been granted parental rights.

Putnam has refused to allow Lake to see her 8-year-old son, according to a report of the court’s decision by the Associated Press.

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However, the court disagreed, saying it’s inappropriate to apply the high court’s June 26, 2015, ruling legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states retroactively and that the couple wasn’t married when the child was born. Therefore, the court said, Lake doesn’t have parental rights under Michigan law.

“We simply do not believe it is appropriate for courts to retroactively impose the legal ramifications of marriage onto unmarried couples several years after their relationship has ended,” the appeals court said. “That, in our view, is beyond the role of the judiciary.”

Appeals Court Judge Douglas Shapiro wrote there’s no evidence the couple would have married if same-sex marriage had been legal. However, a future ruling might award parental rights if there was clear evidence that the couple wanted to marry, but couldn’t because it was illegal.

Jay Kaplan, Lake’s ACLU of Michigan lawyer said the ruling is “devastating.”

“This young boy had two moms,” he told The Detroit News. “The end result is (Lake) can be unilaterally erased from his life. … It’s the collateral damage of all those years of discriminating against same-sex couples.”