LGBT Community Wins A Big Supreme Court Victory

After guaranteeing the right of same-sex couples to marry, the U.S. Supreme Court has given same-sex couples another victory. This time the case was about adoption rights, and the vote of the court was unanimous.

The case sprang from a lesbian couple in Alabama, who went to Georgia to adopt a child (since Alabama law would not allow them to adopt). The couple were referred to in the court case by the initials A.L. and V.L.. The couple later broke up, and A.L. tried to use Alabama law to deny rights to the child for V.L., and Alabama courts went along with her -- claiming that since adoption rights for same-sex couples were not recognized in Alabama, V.L. had not rights regarding the child.

The case went to the Supreme Court. The court, in an 8 to 0 decision, ruled that Alabama must recognize the "full faith and credit" of Georgia (and other states allowing same-sex adoptions) -- and Alabama courts could not overturn adoption decisions made by other states, saying:

"A state may not disregard the judgment of a sister state because it disagrees with the reasoning underlying the judgment or deems it to be wrong on the merits."

This is a huge victory for the rights of the LGBT community. And with the decision being unanimous, this would now seem to be settled law. Alabama (and some other states) can still deny the right of a same-sex couple to adopt, but when those couples adopt in another state, there's not a damn thing Alabama (or any other state) can do about it.

This is one more step toward equal rights for all in the United States.