U.S. Sup. Ct.;
16-992

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a petition for writ of certiorari. The court held that the State of Arkansas improperly denied same-sex couples a right otherwise afforded under state law to opposite-sex couples: to have a married birth mother's spouse listed on her child's birth certificate as the child's parent.

Same-sex married couples Leigh and Jana Jacobs and Terrah and Marisa Pavan both gave birth to a child in Arkansas in 2015. Both couples filled out paperwork listing both spouses as parents—Leigh and Jana in one case, Terrah and Marisa in the other. In both cases, however, the Arkansas Department of Health issued certificates bearing only the birth mother's name and omitting the spouse's name. The couples filed suit, arguing that the refusal to list the spouses' names violated their constitutional rights as enunciated in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. ___ (2015).