[JURIST] The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals [official website] on Friday ruled [decision, PDF] that the state must recognize the out-of-state adoption of a biological mother’s same-sex partner. The plaintiff was the biological mother of three children appealing a court order that granted visitation rights to her former same-sex partner. The partner legally adopted the children in Georgia and when the couple separated, the biological mother tried to keep her former partner from visiting the children. The plaintiff argued that the case should be reversed because of jurisdiction, and because the visitation rights were granted without a hearing. The Alabama court on Friday reversed the Georgia order, saying the plaintiff is entitled to a hearing consistent with due process rights. In reversing, however, the court found Georgia’s jurisdiction in granting the legal adoption rights were proper, and found no valid public policy reasons for rejecting the adoption order.

Same-sex adoption remains an active legal issue throughout the world. In September a judge for Wisconsin’s Dane County Circuit Court [official website] ruled that the marriage of a lesbian couple who wed in Iowa was constitutionally valid and that such marriages must be recognized [JURIST report] under state adoption laws, approving the couple’s adoption of their two children. That same month, the French Court of Cassation [official website, in French] ruled that a woman was allowed [JURIST report] to adopt the child of her same-sex spouse conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Chambre des Deputes [official website, in French], Luxembourg’s national legislative body, approved [JURIST report] a bill last June extending marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples. On the other hand, the Constitutional Court of Colombia [official website, in Spanish] in February upheld a restriction that same-sex couples cannot adopt [JURIST report] children that have no biological relation to either parent. Last year Russia banned the adoption of Russian children by gay couples or single people from countries that legally allow same-sex marriage.