one small problem with that, Virginia has an Amendment to it’s Constitution invaliding all civil unions from other states in Virginia. The Virginia Supreme Court was wrong and there was another case making its way thru the system. There was supposed to be another hearing in January in Virginia at the Court of Appeals.
IT’s a lot more complicated than that. The Virginia courts are not recognizing the civil union. They are recognizing the ruling of a civil child custody court. States recognize the child custody rulings of other states, otherwise you’d have divorced and never-married parents state-shopping to fight over the children.
Now, the civil union does “matter”, because it’s the Vermont civil union which conveyed the status of adoptive parent to the other woman. But the Virginia court did not base it’s ruling on the adoptive status — it simply affirmed that Virginia recognizes the legal rulings of child custody courts of other states.
I would think that Virginia could re-write it’s laws to prohibit our courts from recognizing the rulings of other states — but how would that law be written?
For example: Suppose a girl in Virginia gave her child up for adoption, and a married heterosexual couple adopted the child in Vermont. Then suppose that girl got married to the father, and together they changed their mind and fought the adoption in Virginia courts.
If Virginia had a law that said that adoptions by women who weren’t the biological mother could be invalidated by the biological mother, then this couple could invalidate the Vermont adoption, and get their child back. But that would make it impossible to run adoptions — people won’t adopt if they live in fear of having the children taken away.
How would you write the law so that the lebian adoptive mother could have her rights revoked, but not the non-lesbian adoptive mother?
Virginia has some strict rules. We don’t have civil unions or gay marriage, we don’t allow gay couples to adopt.