Same-sex couples that allowed a partner to legally share parenting rights through second-parent adoptions prior to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage can now expect all states to honor those adoptions. This assurance comes thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling March 7 that reversed the Alabama Supreme Court’s refusal to recognize a second-parent adoption decree granted in Georgia.
The per curiam summary disposition opinion came in V.L. v. E.L., where the parties were two Alabama women who were in a relationship from approximately 1995 to 2011. E.L. gave birth to one child in 2002 and twins in 2004, and the couple raised the children together, eventually agreeing that V.L. should adopt them. The couple then rented a house in Alpharetta and filed an adoption petition in Fulton Superior Court. E.L. gave express consent to the adoption while not relinquishing her own parental rights, and the court granted the adoption in 2007.
