Judge orders same-sex couple to give up foster child

Utah child welfare officials are reviewing a juvenile court judge’s ruling that ordered a baby to be taken from lesbian foster parents and placed with a heterosexual couple.

Judge Scott Johansen’s order Tuesday in the city of Price raised concerns at the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, agency spokeswoman Ashley Sumner said to Fox News, which added that the ruling came during a routine hearing for April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, a married couple allowed to become foster parents after last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage.

Hoagland and Peirce told KUTVthat the ruling calls for the baby girl they have been raising for three months to be taken away within a week, also claiming that Judge Johansen cited research that children do better when heterosexual couples raise them.

“We are shattered,” Hoagland told KUTV. “It hurts me really badly because I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Judge Johansen is precluded by judicial rules from discussing pending cases, Utah courts spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said to Fox.

Spokeswoman Sumner said to Fox that the judge’s decision was based on the couple being lesbians and that her agency isn’t aware of any other issues with their performance as foster parents.

“We just want sharing, loving families for these kids,” Sumner was quoted by Fox. “We don’t really care what that looks like.”