No birth certificates allowed for Arkansas newborns

Newborns in Arkansas will go home without a birth certificate, starting today, until the state fixes its unconstitutional birth certificate law.

As it now stands, Arkansas favors heterosexual parents by automatically putting the mother's husband's name on the baby's birth certificate, even if he isn't the biological father, but requiring a same-sex couple to get a court order before both parents' names could be put on the certificate.

According to the Palm Beach Post:

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox on Friday set aside his orders requiring the state and three same-sex couples go into mediation on how to fix the state law to comply with the U.S. high court's order. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge earlier this week asked the state Supreme Court to stay or lift Fox's mediation order.

"This case has been pending for over two years and it has been more than six months since the United States Supreme Court ruled the Arkansas statutory scheme unconstitutional," Fox wrote in his order. "There are citizens and residents of the state of Arkansas whose constitutional rights are being violated on a daily basis."

Judge Fox hopes that Governor Asa Hutchinson can fix the law through executive action, but if not, it probably won't be until February or later, when lawmakers convene again, that parents can expect to bring home a birth certificate along with their new baby.

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