Arkansas' high court wants new order on birth certificate law

LITTLE ROCK — Members of Arkansas' Supreme Court say the state must change a law that kept same-sex couples from listing both of their names on birth certificates but disagree on who should do it.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled the Arkansas law invalid, and state justices Thursday sent a case back to a lower court. Three justices say Pulaski County Judge Tim Fox impermissibly rewrote the statute and needs to write a new order, while another justice wants Fox to hold additional hearings. Three justices said legislators alone can change the law.

Either outcome would have been considered a win for the Arkansas couples, their attorney, Cheryl Kathleen Smith Maples, said Thursday. However, she said they preferred the court’s decision to remand the case back to Pulaski County.

“This is exactly what we wanted from the very beginning,” Maples said.

State attorneys had argued that the discrepancy between how gay and heterosexual couples were treated when seeking birth certificates could be remedied by a gender-neutral reading of a different law that dealt specifically with artificial insemination. The majority, in an opinion written by Justice Robin Wynne, rejected that argument.

The U.S. high-court, Wynne wrote, had found the general law regarding birth certificates unconstitutional and in need of remedy.

A spokesman for Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said her office was reviewing the decision Thursday morning.

Three couples had sued the state for the right to amend their children's birth certificates. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Arkansas' Health Department began issuing birth certificates listing both spouses in a same-sex marriage.

Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

The Associated Press and John Moritz of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette contributed to this story.

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