April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce showed up for what they thought would be a routine hearing regarding the infant they’d been fostering in their home for three months. The married couple says they intend to adopt the child, with the blessing of both the biological mother and Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services caseworkers. Things took a shocking turn when Judge Scott Johansen ordered the child removed from their home within seven days and placed in a home with heterosexual parents. The reason? He’d seen some studies, which he refused to cite, that children are better off in heterosexual homes.
Now Utah officials say they’ll fight on behalf of the child:
Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services said on Thursday that it would go to an appeals court if state juvenile Judge Scott Johansen did not rescind his decision.
The state agency said the judge went against its recommendation that the baby should stay with April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, a married couple in Price, Utah.
Even Republican Governor Gary Herbert said he didn’t understand the judge’s ruling:
Herbert said: “He may not like the law, but he should follow the law. We don’t want to have activism on the bench in any way, shape or form.”
Herbert added that the judge should not “inject his own personal beliefs and feelings in superseding the law”.
Judge Scott Johansen has a history of controversy. He once slapped a 16-year-old boy during a court meeting, ordered a mother to cut off her 13-year-old daughter’s ponytail in a public court and sent a juvenile to detention over a bad grade card, something his parents say sent him into a spiral that he never recovered from.
Perhaps it is time to reconsider the 2014 judicial review that recommended he be retained as a juvenile court judge.