Despite what April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse saw as a setback in their fight for the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, the Hazel Park couple continues their legal battle.
An online campaign to help the Hazel Park couple offset legal expenses from their lawsuit, which is currently pending in the Eastern District Federal Court in Michigan, has raised $18,916 in five months. Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman said that he will wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide two gay marriage cases before ruling on whether Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional.
The campaign hopes to raise $250,000, despite the fact that their legal team has represented the couple for free thus far. The campaign's creator, Chris Kessel, posted on GoFundMe:
April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse are fighting for their family in the state of Michigan, which has some of the nation’s most stringent and regressive laws and policies in the country in regards to the LGBT community and their children. DeBoer and Rowse’s desire to jointly adopt all three children would establish each parent’s legal claim and relationship to their children. Currently one has adopted two of the children and the other has adopted one. Unfortunately the Michigan Adoption Code prohibits joint adoption for their kids and thousands of other children in households like theirs across the state, violating their right to Equal Protection under the United States Constitution. View the fundraiser online here.
