PRICE, Utah (AP) – April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, a Utah couple who married last year, went to a routine hearing Tuesday expecting to hear an update on how long it would be before they could adopt the baby girl they’d been raising as foster parents for three months.
Instead, they were shocked and devastated when a judge in the central Utah city of Price ordered the child be removed from their home within a week and placed with a heterosexual couple, citing a belief that children are worse off when raised by gay couples.
There were audible gasps in the courtroom, Hoagland said, and outrage echoed around the country this week as national LGBT groups, Utah’s Republican governor and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized the judge’s ruling.
State officials and an attorney for the women filed court documents demanding the judge rescind his decision. Judge Scott Johansen reversed course later in the week but could still order the child removed at a Dec. 4 custody hearing.
“We’re just happy we don’t have to say goodbye to her on Tuesday,” Hoagland told The Associated Press. “That’s a big relief.”