Even if a biological parent wants to grant custody rights to his or her domestic partner, Utah law is silent on this issue as well, Zimmerman said.

In her dissenting opinion to Jones vs. Barlow, Chief Justice Christine Durham called on the Legislature to recognize that in the 21st century, Utah's laws need to reflect the growing diversity and to recognize that a non-biological parent has value in a child's life.

State Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, has struggled for years to draft a bill that would give some legal leverage to non-parents. Hillyard, a family law attorney, said there are times when a child may be better off with a non-biological parental figure.

"The difficulty is that our common law strongly supports the biological parent," Hillyard said.

For several years, Hillyard has pressed the issue with parentage bills, calling into question what happens when a divorced man ordered to pay child support finds out the child is not biologically his. Does he still have an obligation to pay child support?

Hillyard points to a Utah case in which a woman left her husband to raise the children on his own. The father remarried but then was injured in an accident and died a month later. During that time the biological mother returned to reclaim her children, not because she cared for them, but because she wanted custody to file a wrongful death claim in court.

"At that time, Utah law was clear — biology won," Hillyard said.

Hillyard said lawmakers, however, are reluctant to create a law that would conflict with a parent who is presumed fit. They also don't want to get entangled with recognizing same-sex relationships. Such relationships are already banned from recognition under a constitutional amendment.

Lawmakers have debated linking visitation rights to the willingness to pay for child support. The rationale is that if someone cares enough for a child to pay child support, they should have a right to visitation. But again, that may conflict with a fit parent's decision that such visitation would not be in the child's best interest, Hillyard said.

Hillyard said he saw the high court's recent decision in Jones vs. Barlow as an invitation to tackle the issue, and advocates for non-parental figures say they plan to push the issue during next year's session. Hillyard said lawmakers should give it attention.

"I don't know what the solution is," Hillyard said. "But I'm not afraid to try it."

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