PHOENIX — Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery has turned away a same-sex couple seeking help to arrange a stepparent adoption for one of the spouses.

The Arizona Republic in Phoenix reports that Lenora and Leticia Reyes-Petroff had requested help from Montgomery’s office after discovering that it provides free help to couples with uncontested adoptions.

However, Montgomery said the October federal court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in Arizona dealt with marriage, not adoption. Arizona adoption law refers to a “husband and wife” and to a “married man and woman.”

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Lenora Reyes-Petroff said same-sex couples shouldn’t have to hire a private attorney for legal assistance that an opposite-sex couple can get for free.

The couple married in California in 2013 and they had a child in 2014 conceived through artificial insemination.

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