Stepparents who join a family through a civil union have the same parental rights as stepparents who join through traditional marriage, the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled.
The court ruled unanimously in favor of Kris Fulkerson, who is fighting for visitation of her stepchild after the death of her civil partner, the child’s father. The child lived with Fulkerson and her partner from the time of their civil union in November 2013 until the partner’s death in January 2017.
After the child’s father’s death, the child went to live with the mother, Crystal Westmoreland. Westmoreland and the child’s father had shared parenting time after their 2013 divorce, though the child lived with the father. After his death, Westmoreland refused to let the child visit with Fulkerson or her three children. Fulkerson petitioned the court for visitation and an allocation of parental responsibilities.
The appellate court ruled that after one partner in a civil union dies, the other partner does not have standing as a stepparent to request visitation or parental responsibilities with the deceased partner’s child. The Supreme Court’s decision overturns that ruling and remands Fulkerson and Westmoreland’s case to the circuit court.
While the case involved an opposite-gender civil union, the ruling could be a landmark for partners in same-sex civil unions who seek continued parental rights to their stepchildren after their partner dies.
The Civil Union Act guarantees a party to a civil union the same legal protections and benefits as a spouse under Illinois law. Westmoreland argued the law only applies to partners’ protections and benefits pertaining to one another, not to children.
Garman said Westmoreland relied on outside aids to apply meaning to the statute, which was unnecessary as the statute’s intentions are clear.
“The legislative intent is clear and unambiguous: the General Assembly intended to create an alternative to marriage that was equal in all respects,” Garman wrote. “The limitation for which Westmoreland advocates conflicts with the Civil Union Act’s expressed intent to put civil union partners on equal ground with spouses. We therefore decline Westmoreland’s invitation to read this limitation into the statutes.”
The Dissolution Act limits who may petition for visitation or parental responsibilities of a child. Stepparents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and siblings are the only nonparents who can file these petitions if a child’s natural parent dies. Westmoreland argued that granting civil partners standing as stepparents violates natural parents’ right to parent their children.
The law defines a stepparent as “a person married to a child’s parent.” Since the Civil Union Act applies all benefits of a spouse to a civil partner, Fulkerson is entitled to the same right to petition as any other stepparent, Garman wrote.
“Westmoreland does not challenge the Dissolution Act’s grant of standing to stepparents as unconstitutional but rather argues that interpreting the statutes to allow a civilly united partner to request visitation and parenting time as a stepparent would unconstitutionally expand its scope,” Garman wrote. “We again note the legislature’s intent in enacting the Civil Union Act was to create an alternative to marriage that is equal in all respects. No difference exists between a civil union and marriage other than the name.”
It was not the court who expanded the definition of stepparent to include civil partners, Garman wrote, but the legislature when it created civil unions as an equal alternative to marriage.
The court did not rule on Fulkerson’s specific petitions. Those have been remanded to the circuit court with the clarification that Fulkerson is the child’s stepparent as defined by state statute.