Utah Gov. Huntsman signed HB 343, codifying married-couple preference that excluded same-sex couples from adoption and foster placement

On March 14, 2007, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed H.B. 343, "Foster Placement and Adoption Amendments," into law as Chapter 255, Laws of Utah 2007, effective April 30, 2007. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Lorie D. Fowlke and Sen. Dan R. Eastman and passed by the Utah State Legislature during its 2007 General Session, amended Utah Code 78-30-1 to bar adoption by any person "cohabiting in a relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage under the laws of this state," defining "cohabiting" as residing together while in a sexual relationship. It also directed the Division of Child and Family Services and other child-placing agencies to give adoption priority to "a man and a woman who are married to each other" absent enumerated exceptions, and separately amended Utah Code 78-3a-307 to add a parallel married-couple priority for shelter-hearing foster placements.

Utah did not recognize same-sex marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships in 2007 — the state's constitutional marriage amendment, ratified in 2004, foreclosed all three — so the marriage-based mechanism categorically excluded every same-sex couple from the preferred adoption tier and from eligibility for joint foster placement, while married opposite-sex couples and non-cohabiting single adults remained eligible. The law statutorily codified and extended a policy the Division of Child and Family Services had first adopted administratively in 1999, when the DCFS board's chairman publicly cited gay couples' inability to marry as a reason for their exclusion under the same marriage-based standard.