"We are very excited today and happy people could join us at this historic occasion, and this trial's been a long time coming. We are very much looking forward to presenting the evidence and the witnesses in this case. We are extremely optimistic that when all the evidence has been heard, the trial has reached a conclusion, and the decision has been rendered that Michigan will finally join many other states where gays and lesbians are considered to be equal citizens and that their families and children enjoy the same protections and the same rights that everybody else has."
Dana Nessel, attorney representing April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse
"Jayne and I made this choice – the decision to fight the second parent adoption ban – and we are happy to be representing everybody in the marriage case as well. We love our children. This started out as about our children, this is still about our children. Although we'd reap the benefits of being able to get married in the state of Michigan, we want to be recognized like everybody else. Nothing says family like a marriage license that says we are legally a family. And that's what we are hoping for and – I think – what we're going to get."
April DeBoer
"There are 3500 children in Michigan's foster care system in Michigan are waiting for adoption. They linger. Too often they move from home to home. He believes making gay and lesbian adoption easier would give these children better outcomes."
Excerpt from Dr. David M. Brodzinsky's testimony in the trial.
"Both scripture and nature is designed by God to affirm the lifelong coveted union of one man being a male as created by God, one woman being female as created by God in a one-flesh relationship. Violations of this one-flesh union, whether heterosexual or homosexual, premarital or extramarital, contravene the divine plan for the family, for the conception and rearing of children, bringing spiritual disparity and guilt and death to individuals and cultures…. The state of Michigan's already spoken on this issue. The people, the public, has spoken. And God has spoken… That's all we have to say."
Rex Evans of Free Will Baptist Church, Ypsilanti
