LINCOLN- Two Omaha citizens have lost their lawsuit against the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, which disallowed them from listing both same-sex parent's names on their child's birth certificate.

Erin Porterfield and Kristin Williams, the two parents, were in a relationship from 2000 to 2013, and conceived their son through artificial insemination. After splitting, they made the decision to co-parent their newly born son, seeking a child custody determination from a Douglas County Court judge.

The judge told the now-split couple that they would have to attempt to amend the birth certificate of their child in order to place both of their names upon it.

Porterfield submitted an application to the Nebraska DHHS which added Williams onto the certificate, but was denied. After requesting a hearing to re-adjudicate the decision, Porterfield was again denied.

The ACLU of Nebraska filed a lawsuit against the Department on behalf of Porterfield and Williams, which attorneys for the DHHS attempted to dismiss at a hearing in May. Assistant Nebraska Attorney General Erik Fern stated that the claims put forth in the lawsuit rest on "a fundamental misunderstanding of Nebraska law."

The ACLU rebuked this, saying that the lawsuit was about equal treatment for families with same-sex parents.

Fern responded by arguing that the lawsuit goes against two indisputable aspects of Nebraska law: that state statutes and regulations require acknowledgments of paternity to affirm the biological father of a child, and that the DHHS' acknowledgment form explicitly requires affirmation of a biological connection.

After years of litigation, the ACLU of Nebraska and parents Porterfield and Williams lost the case, with Lancaster County District Judge Ryan Post writing in his decision that "the court certainly understands why plaintiffs seek a policy change. But that policy decision is for the Legislature, not the court."

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