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Utah to Fight Judge's Order to Take Baby from Lesbian Foster Parents

Republican Utah Gov. Gary Herbert on Thursday chided a local judge for putting his "personal beliefs and feelings" above the law when he ordered a baby to be taken from her lesbian foster parents and placed with a heterosexual couple, supposedly for the child's well-being.

"He may not like the law, but he should follow the law," he said about Scott Johansen's ruling, which the governor said left him "puzzled," according to The Associated Press. "We don't want to have activism on the bench in any way, shape or form."

Response from Same-Sex Married Couples

April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, part of a group of same-sex married couples who had been allowed to become foster parents in Utah after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay unions across the United States, said the judge cited research that children do better when they are raised by opposite-sex couples.

"We are shattered," Hoagland told the Salt Lake City TV station. "It hurts me really badly because I haven't done anything wrong."

"We've been told to care for this child like a mother would, and I am her mother, I mean that's who she knows," she told the Guardian. "And she's just going to be taken away in seven days, to another probably good, loving home, but it's just, it's not fair, and it's not right and it just hurts me really badly."

Officials Will Fight Order

Meanwhile, Utah state officials have announced they will fight Johansen's order. Utah's Division of Child and Family Services, which had recommended that the baby stay with Hoagland and Peirce, said on Thursday it would take the matter to an appellate court if the judge does not rescind his decision.

A full transcript of the Price, Utah, ruling has not been made public, and citizens may never get full access to it because records of cases involving foster children are generally kept private to protect the children, explained Ashley Sumner, a spokeswoman for the state's family services agency.