Custody rights for separated LGBTQ couples could be affected by Michigan Supreme Court case

The Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in Pueblo v. Haas, a case disputing custody rights for a child raised by a same-sex couple that has now been separated for years.

The court's ruling could have a lasting effect on the custody rights of same-sex couples who separate after a child is born.

What happened in the case?

The case involves Carrie Pueblo and Rachel Haas, who never married but held a commitment ceremony in 2007, per court filings. That was years before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationally in 2015.

Haas gave birth to a boy through in vitro fertilization in 2008. Pueblo and Haas separated in 2012, and Pueblo contends she remained in contact and caring for the boy until 2017, when Haas asked her to not see the child anymore.

Pueblo filed a complaint for custody, but a trial court dismissed her claim in 2021. A Michigan Court of Appeals also sided with Haas later that year, before the Supreme Court agreed last year to take the case up.

What are the arguments in the case?

In court filings, attorneys for Haas have argued that Pueblo has no legal standing for custody of the child, since Pueblo does not meet the criteria of being a "natural parent" either by genetic or biological means. In their brief, they also note the two were never legally married.

"Appellee Rachel Haas chose not to marry the Appellant Carrie Pueblo. That was her right and that was her choice ... this Honorable Court should not impose a marriage where none existed," Haas' lawyers wrote in their brief.

Pueblo's lawyers have pointed out that she was involved in the child's life, even after she and Haas separated. Furthermore, they argue that the child risks missing out on a two-parent upbringing if Pueblo is barred from being able to see them.

"Society has long determined a two-parent household as the norm. Even in cases of divorce, separation, or the like, a child continues to legally have access to both parents, without question – so long as that child was conceived of a heterosexual relationship," Peublo's attorney Reh Starks wrote.

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"Alternatively, children of same-sex couples whose relationship does not endure are not afforded that same basic, yet important, opportunity. Rather, children who are the product of same-sex relationships that have ended are legally denied access to their second parent."

What is a parent?

In a friend of the court brief, lawyers for the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan said the court should reconsider the meaning of "parent" in Michigan's laws to extend beyond biological or adoptive means, including same-sex couples who made the decision to have a child through IVF.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union also noted that Michigan's current custody laws don't account for children born before the Obergefell ruling.

"Here, as a result of the fact that two women who chose to bring a child into the world were prevented from marrying, the child was born to unmarried parents, and that fact is now being used to justify depriving the child of a relationship with Ms. Pueblo," ACLU attorney Miriam Aukerman wrote in an amicus brief.

Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @arpanlobo.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Michigan Supreme Court weighs custody rights for LGBTQ relationships