The Supreme Court has reversed Alabama’s decision to void a same-sex adoption that happened in another state.
The court ordered on Monday that Alabama has to recognize a same-sex adoption that happened in Georgia, saying that an earlier decision by the Alabama Supreme Court was reversed. The justices noted that Alabama was out of line when it nullified an agreement made in another state.
The case involves two women identified as V.L. and E.L. in court records. The women had three children through artificial insemination, and V.L. formally adopted them and E.L. had parental rights.
The Georgia court recognized the agreement and the adoption.
The women raised the children as joint parents until they split up in 2011 while they lived in Alabama, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s order.
V.L. moved out of the house they shared and filed a petition with a lower Alabama court saying that E.L. denied her access to the children and interfered with her parental rights, even though V.L. had formally adopted them.
The lower court gave V.L. scheduled visitation, but E.L. appealed. She said the Alabama courts shouldn’t recognize Georgia’s earlier judgment on the adoption because it lacked jurisdiction.
The Alabama Supreme Court agreed that Georgia couldn’t allow V.L. to adopt the three children while still recognizing E.L.’s parental rights, the order said.
The Supreme Court noted in its order that the Constitution requires each state to recognize judgments rendered by other states.
“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 court wrote in its order.
