Same-sex marriage – Birth Certificate

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United States Supreme Court

Case Name: MARISAN. PAVAN, ET AL., v. NATHANIEL SMITH

Case No.:  16-992

Focus: Same-sex marriage – Birth Certificate

The Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision, we conclude, denied married same-sex couples access to the “constellation of benefits that the Stat[e] ha[s] linked to marriage.” Obergefell, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17).

As already explained, when a married woman in Arkansas conceives a child by means of artificial insemination, the State will—indeed, must—list the name of her male spouse on the child’s birth certificate. See §20–18–401(f)(1); see also §9–10–201; supra, at 2. And yet state law, as interpreted by the court below, allows Arkansas officials in those very same circumstances to omit a married woman’s female spouse from her child’s birth certificate. See 505 S. W. 3d, at 177–178. As a result, same-sex parents in Arkansas lack the same right as opposite-sex parents to be listed on a child’s birth certificate, a document often used for important transactions like making medical decisions for a child or enrolling a child in school. See Pet. for Cert. 5–7 (listing situations in which a parent might be required to present a child’s birth certificate).

Reversed and remanded

Dissenting: Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito

Concurring:

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.