Maricopa County offers free adoption services to gay couples
Jul 10, 2015, 6:59 AM | Updated: 7:00 am
PHOENIX — All married couples regardless of sexual orientation can now get free adoption services in metro Phoenix.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has outsourced its adoption services to various law firms throughout the county.
“That has been in effect for a couple of weeks now and that plan was underway well in advance of the Supreme Court ruling (legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states),” Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said.
“I’ve talked previously about wanting to reorganize the juvenile division along a geographic basis like we have the community-based prosecution division, so those services have been sent to outside counsel,” he said.
The American Civil Liberties Union had threatened to sue Montgomery because he had previously refused to offer the free adoption services to gay and lesbian couples but had provided them to heterosexual couples.
Same sex couples in Arizona have legally been allowed to adopt since the state’s ban on gay marriage was dropped in October 2014.