Throughout the 19 years that Tina Sweeten-Lunsford and her wife, Kari, have been together, they have talked about growing their family by adopting a child.
At first, the time simply was not right for them, Sweeten-Lunsford said. But that time has past. The couple feels ready.
But the Starkville couple still cannot adopt because Mississippi is the only state in the U.S. which has a law specifically prohibiting homosexual couples to adopt a child.
Now the couple — along with three other same sex couples in Mississippi — joined a federal class-action lawsuit filed against the state Wednesday by the Campaign for Southern Equality, a North Carolina-based organization that promotes LGBT rights across the South.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi, argues that the ban on same sex couples adopting is against the U.S. Constitution. The purpose, attorneys say, is to have the ban overturned.
“Basically this law discriminates against people just on the basis of their sexual orientation,” Rob McDuff, an attorney from Jackson who helped file the lawsuit, told The Dispatch. “And it’s unconstitutional just as the ban on same sex marriage was unconstitutional.”
A sentence was added to the state’s adoption law in 2000 that prohibited couples of the same gender from adopting. Ronnie Musgrove, the governor at the time, said he now regrets signing the law.
The suit, assigned to U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan, names the state Department of Human Services (DHS) as a defendant, as well as Gov. Phil Bryant and Attorney General Jim Hood.
Gov. Phil Bryant said he still supports the ban.
“I hope the attorney general will vigorously defend the state of Mississippi against this lawsuit,” he said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Hood’s office had no comment, saying it was still examining the suit.
The lawsuit
When the Lunsfords were looking to adopt in Mississippi, Sweeten-Lunsford said, they learned that they must first be foster parents, a designation bestowed by DHS. Only someone single or a legally married couple can foster children — it can’t just be two people living together, according to Sweeten-Lunsford, the executive director of the Columbus Arts Council.
“Because we weren’t legally married, we couldn’t move forward with it,” Sweeten-Lunsford said. “But … they didn’t tell us at that time that there was an actual line in the law that said same gendered people cannot adopt in Mississippi. So we thought that once we became legally married that we would be eligible to adopt and we found out that still isn’t the case.”
There are a lot of reasons the Lunsfords want to adopt, one being that Kari herself is adopted.
But there’s another reason.
The couple recently learned a number of children in Mississippi have been kicked out of foster homes and other homes because they are homosexual.
“Those children who were kicked out of their house and into the system are really hard to place because most people in Mississippi are not interested in having an LGBT child in their home,” Sweeten-Lunsford said. “We want there to be a safe space for children who don’t have anywhere else to go.”
About a week and a half ago, Lunsford and her wife learned from a friend that the Campaign for Southern Equality planned to file a lawsuit protesting Mississippi’s adoption ban. The campaign was looking for Mississippi couples interested in joining the class-action suit.
The Lunsfords contacted the campaign and asked to be a part of it.
“Basically we had to … tell them our story about why we wanted to adopt, what we’ve already been through in the process of trying to adopt and that was pretty much it,” Sweeten-Lunsford said. “And then we were told, OK the lawsuit’s going to be filed and just be prepared for people to contact you.”
The argument
The Campaign for Southern Equality’s main argument in the suit is that Mississippi’s law violates the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against individuals based on sexual orientations.
The lawsuit also alleges that Mississippi is the state with the highest rate of same sex couples already raising a child. Twenty-nine percent of gay couples in Mississippi have at least one child in the home, according to Aaron Sarver, communications director at the Campaign for Southern Equality.
“They’re currently raising children, but they don’t have the full custody or parental rights that parents need,” Sarver said.
This creates complications for some every day things, like a parent being able to sign a field trip permission form for school, or enroll a child in a sports program, Sarver said.
But it can also have more serious consequences.
In circumstances like health emergencies, particularly if the lone biological parent ends up in the hospital, it’s important that the other parent have the same legal rights and protections to take care of the child, Sarver said.
“What joint adoption would allow is having both of those parents fully recognized as caregivers and raising the children, which again, they’re already doing,” Sarver said. “It’s just not recognized legally in far too many cases.”
Two of the couples who have joined the lawsuit against the state are already raising children, according to McDuff.
Sarver and Sweeten-Lunsford, in an interview with The Dispatch on Wednesday, both talked about studies that show children raised by same sex parents do just as well, academically and emotionally, as children raised by heterosexual couples.
The lawsuit specifically cites statements made by the American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of Social Workers, all of which claim that children raised by homosexual parents are no different in terms of well-being than children raised by heterosexual parents.
A safe space
Sweeten-Lunsford says she just wants to have the same rights that other couples have — the right to legally adopt a child and give children who need one a good home.
“There are children out there who need good role models and we think that we’re good role models,” Sweeten-Lunsford said. “So we want to do that for the children who are being kicked out of their homes or even beaten because they identify as LGBT and that’s really important to us.”
“At this point we don’t even know if we’ll get to that point of adoption, but we want to get licensed as a foster home, and the primary purpose for the beds in our home would be to house children who other foster families choose not to have in their home,” she added. “We have never had any stipulation on what children we wanted to help because all children that are in the system are vulnerable, so we want to make sure that everybody has a safe place they can be.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.