SPRINGFIELD – Illinois divorce law extends visitation rights of stepparents to partners in civil unions, Supreme Court Justices ruled in a case from Madison County on Sept. 24.
They reversed Fifth District appellate judges who drew a distinction between stepparents in marriages and those in civil unions.
“No difference exists between a civil union and marriage other than the name, including the qualifications for entry into the relationship,” Justice Rita Garman wrote.
Madison County Associate Judge Martin Mengarelli read the law that way in 2017.
He ruled in favor of Kris Fulkerson, who wanted time with the son of late civil partner Matt Sharpe.
The child used to live with Sharpe, Fulkerson and her three children.
After Sharpe died, his son lived with mother Crystal Westmoreland.
She wouldn’t let Fulkerson see him, so Fulkerson moved to intervene in a divorce case that Sharpe and Westmoreland started in 2011.
Mengarelli granted intervention and certified the question to the Fifth District.
Judges there reversed him in March 2019, finding divorce law plainly defined stepparent only as a person married to a child’s parent.
Justice Judy Cates wrote that the Civil Union Act reflected intent that partners in civil unions and married spouses should generally share the same benefits and rights in relation to their respective mates.
“The equation of partners’ rights and obligations in relation to each other does not necessarily equate civil union partners to married spouses in relation to children, however,” Cates wrote.
“The law presumes the natural parent’s right to physical custody of his or her child is superior to that of a nonparent and that it is in the best interest of the child to be raised by natural parents.”
She wrote that Illinois law defines stepparent as someone who is married to the parent or was prior to his or her death.
She wrote that the constitution mandates deference to parents as to who will associate with, care for, and exercise control over their children.
She wrote that visitation under the circumstances would indicate that Fulkerson’s right trumped Westmoreland’s right to make decisions for her child.
Justice Thomas Welch and former Justice Melissa Chapman concurred.
Fulkerson appealed, and all seven Justices remanded the case to Mengarelli for proceedings on her petition.
Garman wrote that a stepparent might seek allocation of parental responsibilities if a parent he or she married died or became disabled.
She wrote that the only other classes with a right of visitation were grandparents, great grandparents, and siblings.
She wrote that the Civil Union Act changed the definition of spouse and other terms throughout Illinois statutes to include parties to civil unions.
“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,” Garman wrote.
Michael Scodro and Brett Legner of Mayer Brown and John Knight and Karen Sheley of American Civil Liberties Union, all in Chicago, represented Fulkerson.
Barbara Sherer of Edwardsville represented Westmoreland.