The ability to parent knows no sexual preference or preferred legal standing. It should therefore be impossible to prohibit someone from becoming an adoptive parent for any of these reasons.

This is the sensible opinion of Maine’s highest court, handed down last week in the case of a same-sex Portland couple, Marilyn Kirby and Ann Courtney, whose adoption of their two foster children was stymied by the strict interpretation of a Maine law that predated the Civil War.

A probate judge cited Maine’s 1855 statute only allowing a “husband and wife” or “unmarried person” as eligible for adoption proceedings, and said his court lacked jurisdiction to hear Kirby and Courtney’s case.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has granted jurisdiction, in part by noting the dated law’s obvious flaw: “It is … certain in the mid-nineteenth century the Legislature could not have contemplated … adoption arising from a foster care placement with an unmarried couple as the result of the child protective proceeding.”

In other words, modern children need modern laws to protect them. For the hundreds of Maine children seeking parents, this means breaking down barriers to adoption, and letting people willing to open their hearts and homes to them have the opportunity of parenthood.

Kirby and Courtney were great foster parents, after all. Their care for their foster son, 6, and daughter, 10, was proven. For all purposes and intents, they were already a family. They lacked legal recognition, nothing more.

Which, among the qualities that describe a good parent, is minimally important. Nurturing, compassion, devotion, dedication, responsibility – plus heaping tablespoons of love – are the primary ingredients. Good parents aren’t defined by text inside black-bound lawbooks or judgments rendered by black-robed judges.

A child’s smile and laughter are all the jury they should need.

These are emotions blind to sexual preference or legal definitions. Critics of this decision may decry how children might be raised, without once stopping to consider that they will be raised well, an opportunity that might have otherwise escaped these children had compassionate people like Kirby and Courtney not come along.

Now, other unmarried couples can follow their footsteps toward adoption.

Blurring this progress with the divisive issue of same-sex marriages ignores the advancement in care for at-risk children this decision represents. Maine has created a richer, deeper pool of potential adoptive parents, and, therefore, more children the chance for a stable family.

An observation, we note, the court held in esteem. “Most importantly, a joint adoption affords the adopted children the love, nurturing and support of not one, but two parents,” it stated.

There’s no better reason to reinterpret a law.

Or better yet, to change one.