Gay Couples Wins Birth Certificate Ruling

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Louisiana must issue a gay couple in San Diego a birth certificate for their adopted son that includes both fathers' names.

According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, the fifth U.S. circuit court of appeals in New Orleans ordered the state registrar to issue a new birth certificate to Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith. The registrar had refused to do so.

Their child was born in Louisiana in 2005, and Adar and Smith, who lived in Connecticut at the time, adopted the boy in New York in 2006. They sued in 2007 after the registrar declined to issue the birth certificate with both their names on it.

"Yesterday's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel upheld a lower-court ruling," reports the Union-Tribune. "The judges said state law requires the registrar to list both adoptive parents' names and said the official was violating the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution by refusing to honor an out-of-state adoption, even if the adoption wouldn't have been granted to the same-sex couple under Louisiana law."