The Daily Mail reports

The state Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of a same-sex couple in Fayette County fighting a judge’s order that the baby girl they’ve been raising since birth should be removed from their home and placed in one with a married man and woman.

Kathyrn Kutil and Cheryl Hess argue that Fayette Circuit Judge Paul Blake exceeded his authority and violated their constitutional rights by ordering that the 11-month-old be immediately transitioned into a “traditional” home.

They say the judge has effectively excluded them as potential adoptive parents of the child simply because of their sexual orientation.

 and

“I think I’ve indicated time and time again, this court’s opinion is that the best interest of a child is to be raised by a traditional family, mother and father,” Blake said. “Now, that’s this court’s opinion as to what a typical West Virginian would feel and what the typical attitude is of the West Virginia Supreme Court, a traditional family.”

Follow that? 

Judge Blake believes that ‘tradition’ is more important that a child being placed with a loving couple with a long history of being foster parents, who happen to be of the same sex. 

The child was placed with a potential ‘traditional’ foster family who four days later notified DHHR that they were not interested in adopting the child.  The child was returned to Kutil and Hess after a motion for an emergency stay of Judge Blake’s order, so the girl was returned to them.

In their petition, the couple argues that at least one of them should be considered as a possible adoptive parent.

“It is absolutely nonsensical for DHHR or the circuit court to remove the infant from the only home she has ever known simply because the court believes traditional families are the best environment for a child and as DHHR now appears to be attempting to avoid scrutiny by advocating for the removal of the child,” the petition says.