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U.S. Supreme Court Sides With Same-sex Couples In Arkansas

Marissa Pavan shows the birth certificate she received Dec. 2, 2015 for her child, created through artificial insemination. She was one of the parties in a lawsuit challenging a state law.
Michael Hibblen
/
KUAR News
Marissa Pavan shows the birth certificate she received Dec. 2, 2015 for her child, created through artificial insemination. She was one of the parties in a lawsuit challenging a state law.
Marissa Pavan, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit to allow her spouse to be listed on her daughter's birth certificate, shows the amended certificate she received from the Arkansas Department of Health on Dec. 2, 2015.
Credit Michael Hibblen / KUAR News
/
KUAR News

The Supreme Court has ruled for same-sex couples who complained an Arkansas birth certificate law discriminated against them.

The justices on Monday issued an unsigned opinion reversing an Arkansas high court ruling that upheld the law.

Under the law, married lesbian couples had to get a court order to have both spouses listed as parents on their children's birth certificates.

Arkansas routinely lists a woman's husband as a child's father, even if he is not the biological parent of the child. The same-sex couples want the same presumption applied to the married partner of a woman who gives birth to a child.

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the ruling.

Copyright 2017 KUAR

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