(Frankfort, Kentucky) The Kentucky Court of Appeals has blasted a lower court judge who allowed a woman to co-parent her same-sex partner’s child, but said it was powerless to overturn the ruling because of a technicality.

S and T entered into a relationship in 1997, and T later delivered a boy through artificial insemination. In 2001 S, with T’s support, applied for joint custody of the child, arguing that her involvement was that of a step-parent. 

Jefferson County Family Court Judge Eleanore Garber agreed and allowed joint custody.

In 2003, the relationship between the women ended, but T continued to allow visitation. When a dispute later arose over the visitation terms, T went to court to fight the original ruling.

The Court of Appeals said that because of a Kentucky law which says adoptions can’t be attacked for any reason after more than one year, it could not overturn Garber’s ruling. 

But the 3-0 ruling made it clear there can be no future cases involving co-parenting by same-sex couples.  The judges pointed to Kentucky’s ban on same-sex unions and accused Garber of using a “wink-wink [and] “nod-nod” to circumvent the law.

The ruling also suggested there had been similar rulings by other county judges.

“It is not this or any court’s role to judge whether the legislature’s prohibition of same-sex marriage … is morally defensible or socially enlightened,” the appeals court said in a written ruling.

Conservative groups that fought for the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage hailed the ruling, but the American Civil Liberties Union was critical.

“This is worrisome because any public policy that denies the child of a same-sex couple of the right to have two parents does one thing and one thing only: It harms that child,”  Christine Sun, the senior staff attorney for ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Task Force told the Courier-Journal newspaper.