The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned an Alabama ruling that refused to recognize an adoption by a lesbian mother in Georgia.
The justices on Monday unanimously reversed the Alabama Supreme Court verdict in the case between two women who ended their relationship after a Georgia court granted the non-birth mother full parental rights of their three children.
The couple, who lived in Alabama, never married. The birth mother tried to prevent her former partner from visiting the children and the Alabama Supreme Court refused to recognize the adoption the two women had agreed to in Georgia.
The U.S. Supreme Court wrote "a [U.S.] 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." It said Alabama must give the Georgia court ruling "full faith and credit."
The case is part of a new round of challenges following last year's Supreme Court decision that gay couples have a right to marry.