(CNSNews.com) – The State of Louisiana is expected to appeal a federal court decision last week ordering the state’s Office of Vital Records to change a child’s birth certificate to list two homosexual men as his parents.
 
“This case is going to go on appeal,” said Austin R. Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund.

On Dec. 27, a federal district judge in New Orleans invoked the U.S. Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, ruling that the state of Louisiana must honor a 2006 New York state court decision awarding custody of the boy to two homosexual men -- Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith. The men lived in New York at the time that the adoption was granted, but now live in California. The boy was born in Louisiana.
 
Article IV, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution says that each state shall give “full faith and credit” to the "public acts, records, and judicial rulings" of other states
 
The Louisiana attorney general had argued that state statutes do not allow homosexual adoption in Louisiana -- and the state was obligated to refuse to refuse to issue the certificate, but U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey disagreed.
 
“Regardless of whether the out-of-state adoption decree contravenes Louisiana law or public policy, the obligation to recognize the judgment under the full faith and credit clause remains, in the words of the U.S. Supreme Court is ‘exacting,’” Zainey wrote in his decision.
 
Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said the judge completely misapplied the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
 
“The Full Faith and Credit Clause was never designed to deal with ministerial judicial acts,” he told CNSNews.com. “The Full Faith and Credit Clause was designed to deal with significant legal disputes – that the resolution of those disputes be carried across the borders.”
 
Adoption has never been something to which the Full Faith and Credit Clause would apply, Nimocks said.
 
“We fully expect the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn that decision and re-establish the Full Faith and Credit Clause to what it is and ensure that Louisiana and every other state are guaranteed the sovereignty they are due,” he added.
 
Homosexual activist attorney Kenneth Upton, however, expects the decision to be upheld.
 
“What a great Christmas present for these guys,” Upton, an attorney for Lambda Legal Defense told the Associated Press.
 
Upton, who is representing the two men, said he hopes to get a birth certificate in the coming week.