Homophobia, thy name is Indiana...

So, the hoosier state has the distinction of being one of the national centers of the KKK, the state to try to demand "gestational certificates" and giving them ONLY to Christians, and now:

Judge Orders Child Removed From Lesbian Couple by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff (Indianapolis, Indiana) Becki Hamilton and Kim Brennan for several years have served as foster parents to a number of Indiana children. In 2004 the lesbian couple was asked by the state to provide a home for an abandoned infant and to consider adopting her. They took the baby home when she was two days old and have provided care for her since then, including naming the child Morgan. But when the judge supervising the child's foster care placement realized that the child's prospective adoptive parents were lesbians, the court she ordered the State child welfare agency to find her a home with a heterosexual married couple instead. The State did not locate such a family for many months and meanwhile the two mothers, who are licensed pre-adoptive foster parents, applied for and were granted an adoption by the Marion Superior Court. The Morgan Juvenile Court then ruled that the adoption was invalid. Represented by Lambda Legal, Hamilton and Brennan have appealed the order. In papers filed Friday with the Indiana Court of Appeals, Lambda argues that the adoption must be honored. "Morgan has been a part of this family since she was two days old, and is thriving. The judge's view that children should only be placed with heterosexual married couples is not the law and would leave her with strangers," said Patricia M. Logue, Senior Counsel in Lambda Legal's Midwest Regional Office in Chicago. The appeal says that the original adoption decree was valid and in the child's best interests. "There is no justifiable reason for this family to be torn apart and their legal ties jeopardized," Logue said. "The adoption decree keeps Morgan in a stable and loving home where she has done well. It makes no sense to uproot her from her family in hopes that another will be better because the couple can marry." Indiana has no laws banning gays and lesbians from adopting. Earlier this month proposed legislation that would have prohibited gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child was dropped. (story) In November 2004, the Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that lesbian partners who agree to conceive a child through artificial insemination are both the legal parents of any children born to them. (story)