Simple yet Exotic

It’s official: A federal judge has overturned Mississippi’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children. That means it’s finally legal in all 50 states for a same-sex couple to adopt. 

Mississippi’s law banning same-sex adoption went into effect in 2000. Alabama, Florida, Nebraska and Michigan all had similar bans in place, but while theirs were all overturned, Mississippi’s remained. Until now. 

U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, citing the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide last summer. The injunction blocks Mississippi from enforcing its 16-year-old anti-gay adoption law.

The Supreme Court ruling “foreclosed litigation over laws interfering with the right to marry and rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage,” Jordan wrote. “It also seems highly unlikely that the same court that held a state cannot ban gay marriage because it would deny benefits — expressly including the right to adopt — would then conclude that married gay couples can be denied that very same benefit.”