The Alabama Supreme Court is voiding its earlier decision not to recognize a lesbian couple's adoption that was carried out in another state.
The opinion announced today falls into line with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued in March. It says the Alabama court erred in declaring the adoption held in Georgia invalid.
One woman bore three children, and her partner adopted them — not in Alabama, but in Georgia — where they believed their chances at adoption would be better. Alabama courts got involved when the couple broke up, and the birth mother tried preventing her former partner from having regular visits with the children.
The Alabama Supreme Court refused to recognize the other woman as a parent, and she appealed to the nation's high court.
The unofficial start of the summer travel season is here. The American Automobile Association expects thirty eight million motorists to drive at least fifty miles from home over Memorial Day.
That could mean a lot of traffic as people head to the gulf coast as well as Georgia and Florida.
Triple-A spokesman Clay Ingram says comparatively lower gas prices combined with pent-up travel demand will mean more trips…
“People want to get out and about a little bit—get away to Disney World or Universal Studios, something like that. And, it’s certainly understandable. It’s kinda that time of the year, and we all get itchy, and we’re ready to get out and about.”
The average price of gas in Alabama is about two dollars a gallon. That’s around sixty cents a gallon more than motorists were paying back in February. Still, Ingram says it’s forty cents per gallon less at the gas pump than Memorial Day last year.
Many Alabamians are expected to celebrate Memorial Day on a boat.
The State’s Marine Patrol Division says pleasure boating is expected to increase by two hundred percent over the long weekend. Alabama wraps up safe boating week today, and one big message is for boat passengers to all wear their life jackets.
Todd Lett is with Alabama’s Coast Guard Auxiliary. He says it’s often too late to try to find your life vest and put it on once something happens…
“If you’re in an accident, if you can get to it, that’s great—but if you’re not wearing it and you need it, having to get to it and put it on, could be too late. One of the National Safe Boating Council’s big campaigns that we’ve been pushing is the “wear it” campaign. If you’re going to have a lifejacket, wear it.”
Letts adds that seventy percent of fatal boating accidents involve boat drivers who haven’t taken a basic boating safety course.