Court Refuses Same-Sex Adoption Case

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Court Refuses Same-Sex Adoption Case

Special Report - October 19, 2011
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition to review a lower court’s decision that Louisiana is not required to recognize a same-sex couple’s adoption of a child that occurred in New York. A question arose when Louisiana, which does not allow adoption by same-sex couples, refused to issue a birth certificate for a child listing two men as the child’s parents. The California couple, who adopted a Louisiana-born child in 2006 in New York, where adoption by same-sex couples is legal, had attempted to get a new birth certificate from the Louisiana registrar listing them both as the child’s parents. Louisiana refused because of state law which only recognizes marriage as being between a man and a woman and which requires that children be adopted by either a married couple or a single person. The registrar did offer to list only one of the men on the birth certificate as a father, thereby recognizing a single-parent adoption.

The pro-homosexual organization, Lambda Legal, filed a lawsuit, Adar v. Smith, State Registrar, on behalf of the two men, Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith. In April 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the State’s refusal to issue a birth certificate listing two men as the parents of the child. On October 11, the Supreme Court denied a July petition to review the case, thereby leaving the Fifth Circuit’s ruling standing.