Same-sex couples sue over Miss. adoption ban

A lawsuit filed Wednesday is seeking to overturn a ban forbidding same-sex couples from adopting children in Mississippi, the last state in the nation to deny adoption to homosexuals.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi by the Campaign for Southern Equality on behalf of four Mississippi same-sex couples.

The lawsuit, Campaign for Southern Equality v. Mississippi Department of Human Services, aims, according to the complaint, “to redress the deprivation of constitutional rights caused by one sentence in Mississippi’s adoption law.”

That sentence, part of Mississippi Code 93-17-3(5) — also known as the “Mississippi Adoption Ban,” signed into law 15 years ago — reads that “adoption by couples of the same gender is prohibited.”

The complaint lists the Mississippi Department of Human Services, Gov. Phil Bryant, and Attorney General Jim Hood as defendants.

The attorney general’s office had no comment on the complaint as of Wednesday afternoon except to say that the complaint is under review.

Requests for comment from the governor’s office were not returned.

The Associated Press reported that Bryant still supports the ban, quoting him as saying, “I hope the attorney general will vigorously defend the State of Mississippi against this lawsuit.”

Wednesday evening, the Humans Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, released a statement condemning Bryant for his support of the ban.

In the news release, Rob Hill, director of the Human Rights Campaign Director in Mississippi, said, “We call on Attorney General Jim Hood to come down on the right side of history — don’t defend the ban, allow it to become another discarded artifact of discrimination.”

Roberta Kaplan, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, is the same lawyer who challenged Mississippi’s gay marriage ban last year. She said Wednesday that gay couples with children deserve to be considered not only the children’s “real” parents but also their “legal” parents.

Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, described Mississippi’s ban on adoption by same-sex couples as a “relic” of time when legislatures were passing “discriminatory” laws targeting homosexuals.

2010 census data reveals 29 percent of 3,484 same-sex couples living in the state were raising children under 18 in their homes.

Although the couples are acting as the adoptive parents, Mississippi does not grant them legal status as parents, and the state will not approve an adoption application, unless the applicants game the system.

Plaintiffs Tinora Sweeten-Lunsford, 45, and spouse Kari Lunsford, 50, have been trying for 10 years to adopt in Mississippi. Knowing they couldn’t legally adopt, a state social worker invited the couple to adoption classes because she knew there were ways around the process.

One of two could move out the home for six months, so the situation could be viewed as a single parent home.

But Sweeten-Lunsford and Lunsford didn’t want to be dishonest. They wanted to adopt like everyone else.

So a decade later, when the opportunity was afforded them, they joined the case to fight Mississippi’s ban.

By signing on as plaintiffs, they knew they were stepping into the public spotlight and forfeiting their privacy.

“It was a huge step out of our comfort zones,” said Sweeten-Lunsford, “We value our privacy, but I think this is really important to push our boundary and be a little uncomfortable…”

Rex “Nick” Wilgus, who has a son by a previous marriage, is now an openly gay man and author who lives in Tupelo. When he moved to Mississippi, Wilgus said, he was “struck by the religious atmosphere of the state” and, since then, has penned books on gay children and parents living in the Magnolia state.

At 51 years old, he starts taking adoption classes today. “I love being a father,” said Wilgus, who, as one who describes his childhood as rough, is looking forward to providing a caring home for an adoptee in the near future.

Brittany Rowell, 25, and her fiancee, Jessica Harbuck, 27, who are plaintiffs in the case, don’t view themselves as defenders of a cause or anything akin to a poster child. As Rowell said, “Sometimes you just have to be brave for other people and do it regardless of any backlash.”

“We just want children,” said Harbuck, “That’s been our goal from the very beginning.”

Contact Royce Swayze at (601) 961-7248 or rswayze@gannett.com. Follow @royce_swayze on Twitter.