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The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously reversed an Alabama court’s refusal to recognize a same-sex adoption.
The justices upheld a challenge brought by an Alabama woman after her state’s highest court refused to recognize the adoption she and her former lesbian partner were granted in Georgia.
The couple never married and have since split up. But the case presented a test of an issue that crops up occasionally in state and federal courts since the Supreme Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage: Can gays and lesbians be denied adoption rights?
The case was brought by “V.L.,” as she is identified in court papers, against her former partner “E.L.,” who gave birth to three children between 2002-04 while the couple was together. To win adoption rights for V.L., they established temporary residency in Georgia.
Now that they have split, E.L. agreed with the Alabama Supreme Court, which ruled in September that Georgia mistakenly granted V.L. joint custody. E.L.’s lawyers argued that “the Georgia court had no authority under Georgia law to award such an adoption, which is therefore void and not entitled to full faith and credit.”
The justices upheld a challenge brought by an Alabama woman after her state’s highest court refused to recognize the adoption she and her former lesbian partner were granted in Georgia.
The couple never married and have since split up. But the case presented a test of an issue that crops up occasionally in state and federal courts since the Supreme Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage: Can gays and lesbians be denied adoption rights?
The case was brought by “V.L.,” as she is identified in court papers, against her former partner “E.L.,” who gave birth to three children between 2002-04 while the couple was together. To win adoption rights for V.L., they established temporary residency in Georgia.
Now that they have split, E.L. agreed with the Alabama Supreme Court, which ruled in September that Georgia mistakenly granted V.L. joint custody. E.L.’s lawyers argued that “the Georgia court had no authority under Georgia law to award such an adoption, which is therefore void and not entitled to full faith and credit.”