Having rented a residence in Georgia, the couple established a legal adoption of the children. Interestingly, the couple mentioned they had taken temporary residency in Georgia to win adoption rights for V.L., reported the Detroit Free Press.
Advertisement
In the case E.L. v. V.L. Though V.L. formally adopted the children in Georgia, the couple – both residents of Alabama – ended their relationship in 2011. Alabama refused to acknowledge the Georgia adoption as legitimate.
The trial court found Lea Strickland’s interest in her children was “sporadic at best” and the children would suffer long-term emotional harm if she was granted custody, according to the summary.
“The order provides everything we were seeking for our client”, added Minter, “and also makes clear to other states that adoptions by same-sex parents must be given full faith and credit”.
The parent in November asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review her case, arguing that the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision was unprecedented in its refusal to recognize a valid out-of-state adoption.
The justices didn’t hear arguments, they didn’t want any goddamn briefs, and the court’s opinion was unsigned and unanimous. The adoptive mother, identified only as V.L.in court papers, adopted the three children she was helping to raise with her partner and the children’s biological mother, E.L. The two women agreed to use insemination to have the children. V.L.’s request said “this Court’s review of the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision is urgently needed” because “the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision flouts a century of precedent on the Full Faith and Credit Clause and will have a devastating impact on Alabama adoptive families”. V.L. was awarded joint custody by a lower court, but the Alabama Supreme Court tossed that ruling, voiding the Georgia adoptions.
“It follows that the Alabama Supreme Court erred in refusing to grant that judgment full faith and credit”.
This is the first LGBTI rights case to be decided by the Court since the death last month of Justice Antonin Scalia.
“In fact, the Alabama court’s ruling was so contrary to the Constitution that the Supreme Court did not even need briefing and oral argument to reverse it”, Schaeffer said in a statement.
However, while dismissing the petitions Alabama justices, Chief Justice Moore still expressed their strong disagreement with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage.
The Court said that the Georgia courts made V.L. the legal adoptive parent of the children.
The Supreme Court had already intervened in the case once before.
“I have been my children’s mother in every way for their whole lives”, she said.
Advertisement
Second-parent adoptions allow another person who is not married to the legal parent of a child to adopt that child. So – so far, score is federal courts, two, Alabama Supreme Court, zero. Thanks as always, Nina.
