No easy answers for courts grappling with family cases involving same-sex couples

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked an Alabama court ruling against a woman fighting for parental rights over her former lesbian partner’s children. The court is still considering whether to take the woman’s appeal.

That decision came days after the Kentucky Supreme Court heard a similar case—a woman seeking to stop her former lesbian partner’s now-husband from adopting a child conceived while the women were in a relationship.

While final decisions are still pending, experts say both cases highlight the inherent complexities surrounding family law and child custody cases involving same-sex couples.

“These [cases] are indicative of an important point,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council. “The fact that [same-sex couples] can obtain a marriage license does not necessarily have automatic implications for whether one same-sex partner is legally the parent of the other’s children. I’m glad that the courts are not just making that assumption in these cases.”

The Alabama case involves two women, referred to as V.L. and E.L. in court documents, who were in a 16-year relationship. While they were together, E.L. gave birth to three children with the help of a sperm donor. In 2007, a Georgia court approved V.L.’s adoption of the three children and new birth certificates were issued showing both women as the children’s mothers. The Alabama couple temporarily rented a home in Georgia while seeking the adoptions because they believed the Georgia court would be friendlier to gay adoption.

But when the couple later split, E.L. contested regular visits between the children and her former partner, their adoptive mother. In September, Alabama’s highest court ruled in favor of E.L. and declared the Georgia adoptions invalid. The Alabama justices ruled Georgia law says a court cannot grant parental rights to a non-biological parent who is not married to the biological parent without terminating the rights of the biological parent. V.L. appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in November and it temporarily blocked the Georgia ruling Monday, pending its decision on taking the appeal.

The Kentucky case involves another lesbian couple, A.H. and M.L., who were in a relationship for five years. M.L. gave birth to a daughter in 2006 with the help of a sperm donor. The couple co-parented the child but never sought legal parental rights for A.H. In 2011, the couple split. M.L. later married a man and cut off all contact between A.H. and the girl. Her husband now wants to legally adopt the child. The Kentucky Supreme Court took the case after a county family court ruled in favor of the former partner and a state appeals court ruled in favor of the birth mother.

“We are … still in unchartered waters with some of these issues,” said Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson.

Other states also are struggling to settle similar issues. In a ruling this summer, a Maryland appeals court said state law, as now applied, means that “the non-biological, non-adoptive parent cannot prevail over the objection to custody and visitation by the biological mother.” But Maine now allows courts to recognize the legal rights of a “de facto parent” if they live with the child for a significant amount of time, have a bonded and dependent relationship, and accept full and permanent responsibilities as a parent without getting paid.

Sprigg said there is no logical transition from a “presumption of fatherhood” model, where a married husband is assumed to be the father of his wife’s children, to a “presumption of parenthood” model, where a same-sex partner is presumed to be the parent.

“We think that there should be a great deal of deference given to biological parenthood,” he said. “The parental rights of a person who is a biological parent should in most cases be respected. However we don’t think that there are any rights that come merely by virtue of cohabiting with or being in a sexual relationship with someone who is a biological parent.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.