JUSTICE

SCOTUS Throws Out Alabama Gay Adoption Ruling

State must recognize lesbian mom’s Georgia decision.

The Supreme Court overturned an Alabama Supreme Court decision that claimed the state shouldn’t recognize a lesbian mother’s adoption of three children that had taken place in Georgia. “The Georgia judgment appears on its face to have been issued by a court with jurisdiction, and there is no established Georgia law to the contrary,” the Supreme Court wrote in an unsigned opinion. “It follows that the Alabama Supreme Court erred in refusing to grant that judgment full faith and credit.” There were no recorded dissents. On Monday, lawyers for the plaintiff argued that Alabama’s decision ignored a precedent that state courts must recognize legitimate rulings by courts in other states. One of the mothers, V.L., adopted the children whom her longtime partner, identified as E.L., delivered after becoming pregnant from a donor. The couple later broke up. They lived in Alabama.