Mississippi State Board of Health vs. Goldstein-Perdue

by Juanita L. Lerch
OITM Staff Writer

     “No comment,“ was the official response from Public Relations Director, Nancy Kay Wessman, State of Mississippi Board of Health, concerning their office’s refusal to produce a birth certificate for Taliesin Phillip Charles Goldstein Perdue, son of Martha Holly Perdue and Cheri Lynn Goldstein.
      Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund on behalf of Perdue and Goldstein have filed suit against the State of Mississippi Board of Health for refusal to issue a birth certificate for their adopted son, Taliesin.
      Goldstein and Perdue complied with all legal requirements that apply to interstate adoptions, and the child has lived continuously with his parents since placement eight days after his birth. On April 18, 2000, the Washington District Probate Court, State of Vermont, Hon. George Kendrick Belcher presiding, granted the petition to adopt and a copy of this order was sent to the Branch Director of Vital Records Certification in Mississippi.
      Sanford R. Horton, Jr., attorney for the State Department of Health, informed Kurt M. Hughes, then attorney for Perdue and Goldstein that an amended birth certificate would not be issued due to the state’s policy concerning adoptions by same-sex couples within Mississippi.
      Pursuant to Mississippi law, the State Board of Health is required to issue birth certificates to persons born within the state and adopted outside the state. By refusing to do so, they have subjected this child and his parents to adverse treatment. By refusing to honor adoption orders by out-of-state courts on behalf of children adopted by parents of whom they disapprove, while honoring others of whom they approve, the State of Mississippi has created two classes of Mississippi born children adopted out-of state.
      This clearly violates Mississippi’s own law and deprives the adopted child the security, benefits and convenience a state-issued certificate of birth provides and that other persons born in the state of Mississippi enjoy as a matter of course. Singling this child out for different treatment not only creates an unlawful exception to Mississippi’s own state laws and regulations, but it also violates the guarantees of equal protection of the law under the Mississippi Constitution.
      For more information, log on at: http://www.lambdalegal.org.