Adar v. Smith

After legally adopting their Louisiana-born child in the state of New York, Oren Adar and his partner Mickey Smith were told by the Louisiana state registrar that she would not issue a new birth certificate for their child, because Louisiana does not recognize adoption by unmarried parents. Lambda Legal filed suit on behalf of Adar and Smith in October 2007, saying that the registrar violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution by refusing to recognize the New York adoption decree, and that denying a birth certificate only to children of unmarried parents violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Louisiana attorney general had earlier advised the registrar that she did not have to honor an adoption from another state that Louisiana would not have granted under Louisiana law if the couple had lived and adopted there. In December 2008, a U.S. district judge ruled against the registrar, finding that the attorney general was wrong and that the registrar's conduct did not comply with her full faith and credit obligation. The court ordered her to issue a new birth certificate identifying both Oren Adar and Mickey Smith as the child's parents.