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Loading ...Judge orders La. to issue birth certificate showing 2 dads
03.20.2009 1:35pm EDT
(New Orleans, Louisiana) A federal judge has given the state of Louisiana 15 days to put both names of a gay couple on the birth certificate of their adopted son.
Oren Adar and Mickey Smith adopted their Louisiana-born son in 2006 in a New York court, where a judge issued an adoption decree. When Smith attempted to get a new birth certificate for their child, in part so he could add his son to his health insurance, the office of Louisiana State Registrar Darlene Smith told him that Louisiana does not recognize adoption by unmarried parents and so could not issue it.Lambda Legal filed suit on behalf of Adar and Smith in October 2007, saying that the registrar was violating the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution by refusing to recognize the New York adoption. The Constitution holds that judgments and orders issued by a court in one state are legally binding in other states as well.
In December, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey in New Orleans ordered the state Office of Vital Records to put the names of both fathers on the amended birth certificate.
In his ruling Zainey said failing to amend the birth certificate violated the U.S. Constitution. Zainey issued the ruling without holding a trial.
This week, Louisiana attorney general’s office asked Zainey to reconsider the ruling or order a full trial.
On Thursday, Zainey rejected the motion by Attorney General Buddy Caldwell and ordered the state to comply with his original order within 15 days.
Caldwell said he will appeal the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He wants the court to issue an immediate stay on Zainey’s order until the appeal is heard.
Meanwhile, a bill has been hastily filed in the state legislature that would make it illegal to revise birth certificates for people who would not qualify as adoptive parents in Louisiana. That would include gay couples.
To Disgusted:
>> “Louisiana is the rectum of the country and for you Republican right wings that would support someone like PAYUSH “Bobby” JINDAL (Weasle in sheep clothing) you are just as crazy as the straights that don’t want you to exist moreless have rights!”
You know you’re in “deep doo-doo” when you expect to bring about acceptance of anything homosexual in a State that calls its Counties, “Parishes”.
>> “The only way the south is going to accept anything and even then they wont totally accept it is to be FORCED by the federal government!”
Isn’t that, by definition, “Conservative”? Resist and fight change and progress at all costs; cling on to the archaic (”tradition?”); substitute “faith” for “knowledge”; “Don’t rock the boat!”.
When I first moved to Louisiana (I’m originally a New Yorker), one of the most annoying, persistant, and whiny refrains I heard from my co-workers and friends was, “We’ve ALWAYS done it this way!”, when suggesting or offering a new way.