OSHKOSH, Wis (WSAU-Wheeler News) A same-sex married couple in the Oshkosh area is not sure what it will do next after a state appeals court said no to naming one woman a legal parent of a child from her partner.
The Second District Court of Appeals in Waukesha ruled yesterday (Wednesday) that the couple took the wrong legal approach in challenging paternity laws which only recognize both genders as parents. The court says the couple — two college professors from Winnebago County — should have notified the state Justice Department because they were challenging the constitutionality of a law. Instead, the couple filed their case as an adoption. The appellate court agreed with a circuit judge that the two women were trying to get around filing fees and the involvement of former Attorney General J-B Van Hollen, who was a staunch opponent of gay marriage.
One of the women was artifically-inseminated in 2013, and she had the baby soon after a federal judge issued an initial ruling that gay marriage was legal in Wisconsin.
The couple married five days after the baby arrived.
