The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington. (Photo by Ocean Photography)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Alabama’s top court went too far when it tried to upend a lesbian mother’s adoption of her partner’s children.
The justices threw out a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court in a dispute between two women whose long-term relationship ended bitterly.
“I have been my children’s mother in every way for their whole lives. I thought that adopting them meant that we would be able to be together always,” the noncustodial parent known in court documents by the initials V.L. said in a statement issued by her attorney. “When the Alabama court said my adoption was invalid and I wasn’t their mother, I didn’t think I could go on. The Supreme Court has done what’s right for my family.”
Before their breakup, one partner bore three children; the other formally adopted them in Georgia. The Alabama residents went to Georgia because they had been told Atlanta-area courts would be more receptive than judges in Alabama. The Georgia court granted the adoption in 2007.
Alabama courts got involved when the birth mother tried to prevent her former partner from regular visits with the children. The two women had been together for about 16 years.
The Alabama Supreme Court sided with the birth mother in refusing to recognize the other woman as a parent and declared the adoption invalid under Georgia law. Alabama justices ruled that the Georgia adoption law didn’t allow a “non-spouse to adopt a child without first terminating the parental rights of the current parents.”
In December, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily set aside the Alabama decision as the justices decided whether to hear the woman’s appeal. The issue was whether the actions of one state’s courts must be respected by another’s.
On Monday, the justices said in an unsigned opinion that “the Alabama Supreme Court erred in refusing to grant that judgment full faith and credit.”
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington. (Photo by Ocean Photography) 
