This week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case of a same-sex couple denied an accurate birth certificate listing both men as parents of the Louisiana-born child they adopted in New York. The Court left in place a dangerous decision that carves out an exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution and leaves adopted children vulnerable when they move or travel from state to state.
This is a terrible outcome, both for the law and for Oren Adar, Mickey Smith and their 5-year-old son. Oren and Mickey are two loving fathers who want only to enjoy the rights and privileges that other adoptive parents enjoy and to provide the stable, nurturing and loving environment their son deserves.
Here's what happened: Oren and Mickey adopted their son in New York. Because he was born in Louisiana, they requested an accurate birth certificate from the State of Louisiana listing them both as parents, which every state routinely provides for children who have been adopted. The Louisiana Registrar refused to issue it in this instance, however, because she believed that as an unmarried couple, Oren and Mickey would not have been eligible to adopt had they lived in Louisiana. Lambda Legal went to federal court on behalf of the fathers and their child, and we won, but Louisiana still refused, and it appealed the decision. We won again at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but Louisiana continued to refuse to issue the accurate birth certificate. The State Attorney General appealed again, this time requesting a rehearing "en banc" (before all the judges of the Fifth Circuit), and this time, in a sharply divided decision, we lost.
We asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case because, by carving out an exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Fifth Circuit decision ignores almost 100 years of well-established Supreme Court law and conflicts with other federal circuits across the country. It creates an exception to the uniformly recognized respect for judgments that states have come to rely upon and leaves adopted children and their parents vulnerable in their interactions with officials from other states.
Officials in the State of Louisiana were willing to weaken the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution and harm children just to make clear that they do not approve of gay or other unmarried parents. The Supreme Court is willing to let stand a ruling that says you can be a legal parent in one state, but another state can say that you are not. The result of this is that the hundreds of children in foster care in Louisiana who are awaiting adoption are more likely to be kept in foster care than adopted into loving homes, because the state is telling unmarried couples that if they adopt those children in another state, they will not be able to get a corrected birth certificate, and the Supreme Court is allowing them to do so. So, Louisiana officials and the members of the Supreme Court have not only harmed Oren and Mickey's son, but they are harming countless other children.
The inability to obtain an accurate birth certificate creates serious problems. A birth certificate is the only common identity document that establishes identity, parentage and citizenship. An accurate birth certificate is uniformly recognized and often required in legal contexts, including determining the parents' and child's right to make medical decisions for other family members; determining custody, care and support of the child in the event of a separation or divorce between the parents; obtaining a social security card for the child; obtaining social security survivor benefits for the child in the event of a parent's death; establishing a legal parent-child relationship for inheritance purposes in the event of a parent's death; claiming the adopted child as a dependent on the parents' respective insurance plans; registering the child for school; claiming the child as a dependent for purposes of federal income taxes; and obtaining a passport for the child and traveling internationally.
Oren Adar and Mickey Smith are loving parents; no Louisiana state official, circuit court judge or Supreme Court justice can change that. They will continue to provide for their son the stable and nurturing environment that all children deserve. And Lambda Legal will continue to work with them and with other same-sex parents to secure the rights, responsibilities and protections that all parents and children deserve. After the Supreme Court refusal to hear this case, we are disappointed, but we remain determined as ever to keep fighting.
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Which begs the question of why "legal fiction" in creating any amended birth certificate is allowed. "Legal fiction" allows for an inaccurate birth certificate to be created.
Perhaps it is time for the states to recognise the system of creating amended birth certificates is wrong and instead establish for ALL a legal parentage certificate and leave our Original Birth Certificates alone. Every child - not just adopted would use the Legal Parentage certificate as needed for day to day registrations and then no one would be descrimated against like adopted individuals are still to this day.
A birth certificate is a document of the childs birth. It is supposed to be a true record describing our birth signed by those who witnessed the birth to that fact. An amended birth certificate makes a mockery of something very important. I for one find it absolutely appalling that in a country which purports to be so Christian would allow for absolute untruths to be used. I know I was taught not to lie or use falsehoods - didn't everyone else get taught that fundamental aspect of being a Christian?
An "accurate" birth certificate is a Vital Record of our government, documenting the facts of a citizen's birth in this country. It is (in every other instance) illegal to alter a Vital Record.
An adoption decree is the legal document necessary to show who the legal parents are of the child in question.
Why are adoptive parents above the law? It only causes civil rights violations against the adoptee as an adult, when it becomes difficult if not impossible to get a passport or even (in some cases) a driver's license.
Maybe the better question is: why are adoptees legally prohibited from full citizenship in the U.S.?
STOP this inhumane and archaic practice. In my opinion, this child won a s mall victory. Hopefully someday this society will wake up and start treating our adopted citizens equally and fairly and stop tampering with our TRUE identities!
While it is true the gay couple completed the adoption in New York (where one assumes they were married), they originally came from San Diego, Californa and now reside some where in Florida.
The birth mother "gave" the child to one or both of the gay men for adoption in LA, but that state only allows married couples to adopt. It would appear (and one is only guessing at this point) the couple and or mother went to NY (where both gay adoption and marriage are legal) and completed the formal process there. Hence they filed paperwork back in LA to obtain a "new" BC for the child listing both men as parents, the state refused but did offer as a compromise to issue a new BC listing one of the men as "parent". That didn't sit well with the gay couple so they filed suit in federal court to compel LA to issue what they wished.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/11/us-usa-rights-gays-idUSTRE79A3SX20111011
Or simply Google the case as there is much already out there.
The FF&C clause of the USC is what supporters of "gay marriage" are counting upon for the courts to strike down parts of the DOMA and thus compel states that do not recongise such unions to do so. If the SCOTUS will not hear so much as rule upon Louisiana's refusal to issue a new or revised birth certificate to a gay married couple who adopted an infant in New York but was born out of that state's dominion it may portend things to come.
You think states rights is a cute concept and hasn't been applied since before 1861. You may be right, but, it's not cute. It shows me that the federal government thinks its been perfectly with in it's right to overreach and take rights that belong to the states. I also find it equally sickening that states have allowed it. I do have hope though that with some of the states now trying to get back their rights, it will catch on and we can become the republic we should be and what our founders intended. Well, I guess I'm done here. Arguing that with you would be futile, especially in light of the fact you can't answer my original question.
This is a Constitutional issue more than a social one.
If it were a constitutional issue, don't you think, at least, one of the Justices would have wanted to hear it? All of them rejected it, because it only takes one justice to say they wanted to hear a case.
Could I, as a Kansas resident, compel New York to honor my rights as a resident of Kansas?
That does not mean our adoptive parent has any fewer legal rights than a birth parent. Since the couple in this case resides in a state which has recorded valid adoption documents there should be no problem whatsoever.
This sounds remarkably like forcing an ideological issue, not a legal one.
I saw no point in amending either my or my daughter's birth certificates. They state correctly who our parents of record were at our birth. It is my belief that all birth certificates should only follow that rule with a parent's name redacted if a court can be convinced of the need for same.
Birth is a fact, and it only occurs as the result of biology, not ideology.
2. Info about genetic parentage is the child's birthright if it is known. Some adoptees don't care but many do.
You can't do anything for your child including give consent to life saving hospital treatment unless you can show, with a birth certificate, that you are the parent. Same for travel. A birth certificate should show the names of the child's parents, period. And the parents are the people who raise the child. In this case, it is two men. So what?
I am in favor of gay adoption but I am not in favor, in most circumstances, of concealing the identity of a child's bio parents. It makes a mockery of the concept of vital records. People simply have every right to that information regardless of the feelings of their parents.
And since adoptive parents are real parents, why do they need to pretend to be the bio parents?
Thousands of children are adopted by their step-parents every year without a change in their birth certificate. There is no government or other entity which does not recognize an adoption decree. My step-father adopted me at a very early age. My daughter's step father adopted her also.
Neither my Dad nor my husband ever had one minute's problem involving parental rights.