This comes down to The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution.
Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, commonly known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause, addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial rulings" of other states.-wikiBirth certificates are issued by States.
The Constitutional ensures that full faith and credit is applied to certain documents between States.
It would lead to chaos if a New York birth certificate were invalid in Texas, for example. This matter usually does not come up with adults and seems to come up in regards to the adoptive children of same sex parents.
So States issue birth certificates and an over arching Federal law ensures consistent acceptance of that certificate.
What has happened is that this principle has been disrupted. Some States allow for both parents of the same sex to be listed on adoptive birth certificates.
Other States have not always recognized such certificates, seemingly in violation of the full faith and credit clause. This creates havoc for families who are listed as adoptive parents, of the same sex, on a child’s birth certificate if they move or travel to a State where birth certificates of these children, are not recognized.
This came up in Oklahoma, in a lawsuit by three same sex parents.
Going back to this OP, Gov. Jindal is busy making his rightwing bones in Louisiana so that a couple who are the legal adoptive parents of a child in New York would not be recognized as such in Louisiana.
This creates problems for families who may have to prove parental rights in a medical emergency, or assign health beneficiary status entitled to dependents, or sign papers for school etc. etc. In another words, depriving legal status to same sex parents that every other citizen in the US enjoy, if they happen to be of different sex.
The measure grew out of a federal lawsuit brought by a gay couple who want their names on the birth certificate of their adopted son.
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http://www.365gay.com/news/la-moves-to-bar-same-sex-couples-from-having-names-on-birth-certificates/Oren Adar and Mickey Smith adopted their Louisiana-born son in 2006 in a New York court, where a judge issued an adoption decree.
When Smith attempted to get a new birth certificate for their child so he could add his son to his health insurance, the office of Louisiana State Registrar Darlene Smith told him that Louisiana does not recognize adoption by unmarried parents and so could not issue it.
Lambda Legal filed suit on behalf of Adar and Smith in October 2007, saying that the registrar was violating the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution by refusing to recognize the New York adoption. The Constitution holds that judgments and orders issued by a court in one state are legally binding in other states as well.
In December, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey in New Orleans ordered the state Office of Vital Records to put the names of both fathers on the amended birth certificate.
In his ruling, Zainey said failing to amend the birth certificate violated the U.S. Constitution. Zainey issued the ruling without holding a trial.
In April, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put a stay on the ruling to allow the state to appeal.
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The Supreme Court has ruled previously that there “are some limitations upon the extent to which a state may be required by the full faith and credit clause to enforce even the judgment of another state in contravention of its own statutes or policy.”
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