Same-sex parenting rights under scrutiny in Ohio Supreme Court case set for oral argument this month
A case regarding parental rights in a same-sex relationship will be heard by the Ohio Supreme Court this month. It could test not only Ohio law but the federal Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage.
The state's highest court will hold oral arguments in a case appealed from the First District Court of Appeals to decide the parental rights of a woman who was in a relationship with the children's mother when the child was born. But the woman was never married to the mother, and does not have adoptive rights to the children.
Priya Shahani and Carmen Edmonds were in a relationship for more than a decade, and had thoughts of getting married. But the bulk of their relationship occurred before the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, an Ohio-based case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Edmonds argues the couple travelled to Boston with plans to get married, but decided against it, due to the fact that Ohio would not recognize the marriage at that time. The state also does not recognize common-law marriages.
During the course of the relationship, Shahani had three children using a sperm donor that court documents say was chosen because he matched Edmonds' nationality.
Shahani and Edmonds sought to legally dissolve their relationship after 11 years, an agreement that included scheduled parenting time for Edmonds, but the children still held hyphenated names.
It wasn't until after Shahani removed the hyphenate from the children's names and filed to terminate their shared-custody agreement that the case started. Edmonds argued that the couple's 'marriage-like relationship' gave her rights to the children.
A lower court awarded Edmonds 'companionship time,' but otherwise effectively ruled against both women. It refused to terminate the shared custody agreement while also not allowing a 'parentage' decree for Edmonds.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
When both went to the First District Court of Appeals for answers, Edmonds brought up the Obergefell case legalizing same-sex marriage.
Edmonds argued that under that decision, parental rights statutes apply in this case as they would for married couples. The appellate court said the trial court needed to hold a hearing to decide whether the couple would have been married if the same-sex marriage decision had been in place.
Ohio law only recognizes parents if they are married, have a biological connection, or have legally adopted the child, something that requires marriage in the case of the 'second parent.'
The ACLU of Ohio said state parentage laws, combined with the Obergefell decision, 'provide a pathway for Ms. Edmonds and other non-biological, non-adoptive, same-sex parents who were unable to have their marriages legally recognized in the state of Ohio during the course of their relationship to establish legal parentage and confer the accompanying rights and responsibilities of parenthood.'
Shahani, noted that she made 'the major child-related decisions' including expenses and medical needs. She told the supreme court that giving Edmonds parental rights goes against both state law and the Obergefell decision, even if state statutes were looked at with gender-neutral language.
'This case is about whether Ohio's courts can reinvent history as a mechanism for seizing a fit parent's constitutionally protected rights,' attorneys for Shahani wrote in an October brief to the court.
In a state where common-law marriage isn't recognized, the attorneys said the state constitution, as well as the U.S. Constitution, doesn't allow state courts to 'manufacture an unlicensed marriage into existence.'
'The foundation upon which a 'would have been married' standard rests is a hypothetical injury that the individual may have been denied a marriage license if they had applied for one, or the state may not have recognized a marriage had there been an out-of-state marriage,' attorneys told the state supreme court.
Shahani refutes Edmonds' claim that the two travelled to Boston to get married, then changed their minds. But even if that were true, the legal result should be no different, she argues.
'Even in Ms. Edmonds's version of events, she would not have been married to Ms. Shahani when the insemination occurred, and therefore would not have parental rights,' court documents stated, citing a state statute regarding artificial insemination of a married woman.
The law, effective as of March 2001, specifies a woman 'and her husband' must sign a written consent to the insemination for the 'non-spousal artificial insemination' to occur.
The case was mentioned as one of the 'state oral arguments to watch' this month by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU. The center identifies 'prominent or interesting state court cases,' which this month include the Ohio parental rights case, along with a challenge to Wyoming's abortion ban, an appeal to New York City's greenhouse gas emissions caps, the process of electing appellate judges in Arizona and voter power over zoning changes in an area of Georgia where descendants of slaves have historically taken up residence.
Oral arguments in the case will be heard on April 22 by the Ohio Supreme Court.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Chicago Tribune
Edward Keegan: Happy 10th birthday, The 606! Here's why you are worth celebrating.
An architect eagerly awaits the opening day of a building as it usually offers the most faithful presentation of their design. But it's quite different for a landscape architect. The first day merely what their design is about. It takes years — and patience and a little luck as well — to realize their intentions. Thus The 606 — now 10 years old — has just started to demonstrate its full potential. From the start, The 606 was a different kind of park. It's built on the imposing concrete bones of the Bloomingdale Line — a century old piece of industrial infrastructure that raised active railroad lines 20 feet above street level to alleviate pedestrian deaths that had plagued the city's rail lines. The then-abandoned tracks were identified as a potential bike trail by 1998 and the advocacy group Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail was founded in 2003. Chicago architect Carol Ross Barney led an early community engagement process that produced the Bloomingdale Trail and Park Framework Plan in 2012 and contained the basic design for the 2.7-mile-long park. The subsequent development of those designs, including the critical landscaping scheme, was completed by Brooklyn-based landscape architect Michael van Valkenburgh and opened to the public in 2015. In a city where almost everything is on a strict grid and flat, The 606 is neither. As built in the 1910s, the structure is a generally constant 16 feet above street level and 30 feet wide. The Bloomingdale Line acted as something of a brute force insertion within the Wicker Park, Bucktown, Logan Square and Humboldt Park neighborhoods, with its massive concrete walls dividing north from south in a most unsubtle way. While The 606 kept most of these imposing concrete structures intact, the designers constructed a highly varied topography within the original walls. The paved 14-feet-wide trail rises and falls while undulating between these walls. As befits a park, The 606's built elements are few: the paved trail, custom light fixture and galvanized steel rails that prevent visitors from falling off the structure cover most of these. The gridded metal fences stand atop the old concrete walls and are less obvious now, often providing support for climbing plants that soften the overall effect and help screen the park from the city. The buildings on each side of the trail are less a factor than they were a decade ago. The landscaping obscures many of the neighboring structures, which is certainly for the best along much of the eastern blocks. Ironically, the lushest landscapes occur toward the western end where the plantings often block views of older and more architecturally distinguished buildings. Street signs are located at every street crossing, but they're discrete enough not to distract and it's easy to walk for blocks without being aware of your precise location. Specific spots along the trail offer unique experiences. One of the more memorable spots at the park's opening was the thicket of quaking aspens east of Drake Avenue. Their reedy stick-like appearance in youth was striking, but the stand of trees has matured to create a unique soundscape where their fluttering leaves define a downright magical and distinctive place. One of the wider spots between the old railroad walls is located between Kimball and Spaulding avenues where a mounded lawn provides a more traditional park space for lounging. And the wide paved plaza above Damen Avenue is designed to display art, but was unfortunately bare on a recent visit. When the railroad tracks connected transportation networks, the 16-feet-high walls separated neighborhoods. With The 606, those connections were returned to the communities on each side of the park. But it hasn't come without unfortunate consequences, with gentrification being the most obvious. Barney recalls the early community meetings: 'One of the things that was most obvious to everybody was a lot of disparity in terms of the (lower) income and amenity investments on the west side of the trail (versus) the east side of the trail. We were looking hard to get a good design concept, but they also wanted to bring the neighborhoods along the trail together.' Community stakeholders raised questions. 'Even while we were doing it, there was criticism that it wasn't going deep enough,' Barney said. 'The role that architecture plays in this, or planning or landscape architecture is an important one, but it is not the only place or necessarily the place where the issue is solved.' The addition of the architecturally distinguished Encuentro Square — designed by Jaime Torres Carmona's Canopy / architecture + design — at the western terminus has been a bright spot for affordable development that benefits from proximity to The 606, but that hasn't been the norm over the past 10 years. Clearly, more work needs to be done. There was nothing obvious about the old Bloomingdale Line that led to its revival as a park, but many Chicago citizens seized the opportunity and their dogged efforts over many years now pay dividends through the park's enduring beauty. Originally built to promote movement, it's unexpected that The 606's transformation would create a place of refuge and respite. But that's what it has become over the past decade through thoughtful and truly innovative design that excels at the big things and the little things. Its maturing landscape continues to surprise in the best ways — providing ever-changing experiences that make every visit fresh and new. And that's worth celebrating and emulating. Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan's biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
A decades-old rule lets drivers set speed limits on US roads. That could be changing
Rethinking Speed Limits Rose Hammond pushed authorities for years to lower the 55 mph speed limit on a two-lane road that passes her assisted living community, a church, two schools and a busy park that hosts numerous youth sports leagues. 'What are you waiting for, somebody to get killed?' the 85-year-old chided officials in northwest Ohio, complaining that nothing was being done about the motorcycles that race by almost daily. Amid growing public pressure, Sylvania Township asked county engineers in March to analyze whether Mitchaw Road's posted speed is too high. The surprising answer: Technically, it's 5 mph too low. The reason dates back to studies on rural roads from the 1930s and 1940s that still play an outsized role in the way speed limits are set across the U.S. — even in urban areas. Born from that research was a widely accepted concept known as the 85% rule, which suggests a road's posted speed should be tied to the 15th-fastest vehicle out of every 100 traveling it in free-flowing traffic, rounded to the nearest 5 mph increment. But after decades of closely following the rule, some states — with a nudge from the federal government — are seeking to modify if not replace it when setting guidelines for how local engineers should decide what speed limit to post. Drivers set the speed The concept assumes that a road's safest speed is the one most vehicles travel — neither too high nor too low. If drivers think the speed limit should be raised, they can simply step on the gas and 'vote with their feet,' as an old brochure from the Institute of Transportation Engineers once put it. 'The problem with this approach is it creates this feedback loop,' said Jenny O'Connell, director of member programs for the National Association of City Transportation Officials. 'People speed, and then the speed limits will be ratcheted up to match that speed.' The association developed an alternative to the 85% rule known as 'City Limits,' which aims to minimize the risk of injuries for all road users by setting the speed limit based on a formula that factors in a street's activity level and the likelihood of conflicts, such as collisions. The report points out the 85% rule is based on dated research and that 'these historic roads are a far cry from the vibrant streets and arterials that typify city streets today.' Amid a recent spike in road deaths across the country, the Federal Highway Administration sent a subtle but important message to states that the 85% rule isn't actually a rule at all and was carrying too much weight in determining local speed limits. In its first update since 2009 to a manual that establishes national guidelines for traffic signs, the agency clarified that communities should also consider such things as how the road is used, the risk to pedestrians, and the frequency of crashes. Leah Shahum, who directs the Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit advocating for street safety, said she wishes the manual had gone further in downplaying the 85% rule but acknowledges the change has already impacted the way some states set speed limits. Others, however, are still clinging to the simplicity and familiarity of the longstanding approach, she said. 'The 85th percentile should not be the Holy Grail or the Bible, and yet over and over again it is accepted as that,' Shahum said. Rethinking the need for speed Under its '20 is Plenty' campaign, the Wisconsin capital of Madison has been changing signs across the city this summer, lowering the speed limit from 25 mph to 20 mph on local residential streets. When Seattle took a similar step in a pilot program seven years ago, not only did it see a noticeable decline in serious injury crashes but also a 7% drop in the 85th percentile speed, according to the Vision Zero Network. California embraces the 85% rule even more than most states as its basis for setting speed limits. But legislators have loosened the restrictions on local governments a bit in recent years, allowing them to depart from the guidelines if they can cite a proven safety need. Advocates for pedestrians and bicyclists say the change helps, but is not enough. 'We still have a long way to go in California in terms of putting value on all road users,' said Kendra Ramsey, executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition. 'There's still a very heavy mindset that automobiles are the primary method of travel and they should be given priority and reverence.' But Jay Beeber, executive director for policy at the National Motorists Association, an advocacy organization for drivers, said following the 85% rule is usually the safest way to minimize the variation in speed between drivers who abide by the posted limit and those who far exceed it. 'It doesn't really matter what number you put on a sign,' Beeber said. 'The average driver drives the nature of the roadway. It would be patently unfair for a government to build a road to encourage people to drive 45 mph, put a 30 mph speed limit on it, and then ticket everyone for doing what they built the road to do.' 80 is the new 55 Fears about oil prices prompted Congress in the 1970s to set a 55 mph national maximum speed limit, which it later relaxed to 65 mph before repealing the law in 1995 and handing the authority to states. Since then, speed limits have kept climbing, with North Dakota this summer becoming the ninth state to allow drivers to go 80 mph on some stretches of highway. There's even a 40-mile segment in Texas between Austin and San Antonio where 85 mph is allowed. Although high-speed freeways outside major population centers aren't the focus of most efforts to ease the 85% rule, a 2019 study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety — a research arm funded by auto insurers — illustrates the risks. Every 5 mph increase to a state's maximum speed limit increases the chance of fatalities by 8.5% on interstate highways and 2.8% on other roads, the study found. 'Maybe back when you were driving a Model T you had a real feel for how fast you were going, but in modern vehicles you don't have a sense of what 80 mph is. You're in a cocoon,' said Chuck Farmer, the institute's vice president for research, who conducted the study. A town's attempt at change If elected officials in Sylvania Township, Ohio, got their way, Mitchaw Road's posted speed limit would be cut dramatically — from 55 mph to 40 mph or lower. The county's finding that the 85% rule actually calls for raising it to 60 mph surprised the town's leaders, but not the engineers who ran the study. 'If we don't make decisions based on data, it's very difficult to make good decisions,' Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski said. For now, the speed limit will remain as it is. That's because Ohio law sets maximum speeds for 15 different types of roadways, regardless of what the 85% rule suggests. And Ohio's guidelines are evolving. The state now gives more consideration to roadway context and allows cities to reduce speed limits based on the lower standard of the 50th percentile speed when there's a large presence of pedestrians and bicyclists. Authorities there recently hired a consultant to consider additional modifications based on what other states are doing. 'States have very slowly started to move away from the 85th percentile as being kind of the gold standard for decision-making,' said Michelle May, who manages Ohio's highway safety program. 'People are traveling and living differently than they did 40 years ago, and we want to put safety more at the focus.' It's unclear whether any of these changes will ultimately impact the posted speed on Mitchaw Road. After years of futile calls and emails to state, county and township officials, Hammond says she isn't holding her breath. 'I just get so discouraged,' she said. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Mega Millions winning numbers for Aug. 15: $198 million jackpot
The Mega Millions jackpot rose to $198 million for the drawing on Friday, Aug. 15, after no one matched all the winning numbers in the drawing on Tuesday, Aug. 12. There have been four Mega Millions winners this year, with the most recent being the June 27 win in Virginia of a jackpot of $348 million. Before then, on April 18, an Ohio player took home a $112 million jackpot, a lucky lottery ticket holder in Illinois took home a $344 million jackpot on March 25 and another lucky person hit the Mega Millions jackpot on Jan. 17 for $113 million. Here are the winning numbers from the Mega Millions drawing on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. Mega Millions winning numbers for 8/15/25 The winning numbers for Friday, Aug. 15, will be posted here once drawn. Winning lottery numbers are sponsored by Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network. Did anyone win the Mega Millions? Any Mega Millions winners will be posted here once announced by lottery officials. To view the list of past winners, visit the Mega Millions website. How to play the Mega Millions To play the Mega Millions, you have to buy a ticket. You can do this at various locations, including your local convenience store, gas station, or even grocery store. In some states, Mega Millions tickets can be bought online. Once you have your ticket, you need to pick six numbers. Five of them will be white balls with numbers from 1 to 70. The gold Mega Ball ranges from 1 to 24. If you're feeling especially unlucky or don't want to go through the hassle of picking, you can ask for a 'Quick Pick' or an 'Easy Pick.' These options let the computer randomly generate numbers for you. Mega Millions tickets now include a built-in multiplier, which increases non-jackpot prizes by two, three, four, five, or 10 times. Before, players had to pay an extra dollar to add the 'Megaplier.' Where can you buy lottery tickets? Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. Some airport terminals may also sell lottery tickets. You can also order tickets online through Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network, in these U.S. states and territories: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. The Jackpocket app allows you to select your lottery game and numbers, place your order, view your ticket, and collect your winnings — all using your phone or home computer. Jackpocket is the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network. Gannett may earn revenue for audience referrals to Jackpocket services. Must be 18+, 21+ in AZ and 19+ in NE. Not affiliated with any State Lottery. Gambling Problem? Call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY); 1-800-327-5050 (MA); 1-877-MYLIMIT (OR); 1-800-981-0023 (PR); 1-800-GAMBLER (all others). Visit for full terms. Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at and follow him on X @fern_cerv_. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mega Millions winning numbers for 8/15/25: Jackpot at $198 million
