Lesbian couple victorious as Supreme Court overturns Alabama ruling on parental rights

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an Alabama judicial ruling that refused to recognize a gay woman's parental rights over three children she adopted with her lesbian partner and raised from birth.

The court took the relatively unusual step of reversing the Alabama Supreme Court without hearing oral argument. Cases are decided in that fashion when a lower court ruling is considered to be particularly counter to Supreme Court precedents. None of the eight justices dissented.

The court said in an unsigned opinion that the Alabama court was required to recognize the woman's parental rights because they had been legally endorsed by a court in Georgia.

The Supreme Court had already intervened in the case once before. In December, the court ordered that the Alabama ruling be put on hold while the woman, named in court papers as V.L., filed a formal appeal of the September ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court.

Lawyers for the woman say the Alabama ruling "effectively stripped V.L. of parental rights over the children she had raised since they were born."

V.L. was formerly in a relationship with a woman identified as E.L., who is the birth mother of the three children.

In 2007, a court in Georgia granted V.L.'s petition to adopt the children in a move that E.L. agreed to at the time. The couple split in 2011 and disagreed over custody arrangements.

V.L. filed papers in Alabama seeking joint custody. Lower courts ruled in her favor before the state's high court ruled in favor of her former partner.

The state appeals court said it did not have to endorse the Georgia court's adoption order. Under the U.S. Constitution, state courts are required to recognize judgments issued by courts in other states.

But the Alabama Supreme Court said that the Georgia court did not have jurisdiction to issue the adoption order.

The two women were not married. A Supreme Court ruling last June legalized gay marriage nationwide.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)