Appeals Court Hears Gay Adoption Case

Sixteen federal appeals court judges will decide whether the state of Louisiana should be required to put the names of two gay fathers on the birth certificate of their adopted child.

A federal district judge and a three-judge panel of the U.S. court of appeals for the fifth circuit have previously ruled in favor of Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith, who live in San Diego and adopted a child from Shreveport, La., in 2005.

Attorneys for the state argue that Louisiana does not permit both Adar and Smith to appear on the birth certificate, The Wall Street Journalreports. Unmarried couples are not eligible to adopt children in Louisiana; Adar and Smith formally adopted the child out of state in 2006.

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