The state of Louisiana has refused to recognize the adoption and issue a birth certificate listing both fathers as the boy's parents.

Lambda Legal represents Oren Adar and Mickey Smith in their case against Louisiana State Registrar Darlene Smith.

Adar and Smith are a gay couple who adopted their Louisiana-born son in 2006 in New York, where a judge issued an adoption decree. When the couple attempted to get a new birth certificate for their child, in part so Smith could add his son to his health insurance, the registrar's office told him that Louisiana does not recognize adoption by unmarried parents and so they could not issue it.

Lambda Legal filed suit on behalf of Adar and Smith in October 2007.

In 2009, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey ... entered judgment ordering her to issue a new birth certificate identifying both Oren Adar and Mickey Smith as the boy's parents, saying her continued failure to do so violated the U.S. Constitution. In 2010, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and unanimously affirmed the judgment.

The attorney general requested a rehearing by the full Court of Appeals, which was granted, and a sharply divided court issued a decision this spring overturning the prior decisions.

Lambda Legal

"By treating adopted children whose parents are unmarried worse than other adopted children, Louisiana violates two well-established federal constitutional protections, both of which embody principles of equal treatment and unify us as a nation," said Kenneth D. Upton, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal's South Central Regional Office based in Dallas.

"First, the constitution mandates that Louisiana, like every other state, must treat all out-of-state adoption judgments equally. Second, Louisiana may not treat adopted children themselves differently based on the marital status of their legal parents," said Upton.

Grant Storms

The Rev. Grant Storms was arrested for obscenity after two witnesses told police they saw him touching himself while watching children on the playground at Lafreniere Park in Metairie, La.

Storms, 53, claims he was urinating in a bottle on his lunch break.

Storms responded to the allegations by saying, "I am not a child pedophile and no children saw me. I had my hands in my pants, but I was not exposed."

A self-proclaimed "Christian patriot," Storms is especially known for arming followers with bullhorns, Bibles and picket signs to protest Southern Decadence, a three-day gay festival held annually in the French Quarter over Labor Day weekend.

In 2003, Storms grabbed national attention with his failed attempts to shut down what Southern Decadence organizer Chuck Robinson called a peaceful festival that celebrates gay and alternative lifestyles. Storms called the event "nasty" and "depraved."

His bail was set at $5,000 but he was released due to overcrowding at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center jail.

John Skaggs

SHREVEPORT, La. -- A Shreveport man is accused of attempted murder and the commission of a hate crime in an attack earlier this week on a gay man at a local bar.

Police arrested William Payne, 31, who, according to witnesses, struck the victim, John Skaggs, 52, with the blunt end of a pool cue, causing serious facial injury to his eye socket and jawbone area.

The attack early Wednesday morning left Skaggs unconscious. He faces reconstructive surgery to repair damage caused by a broken bone that holds his eye socket.

Several witnesses told police that prior to the attack, Payne was making physically threatening statements towards Skaggs because of his sexual orientation.

William Payne

The bar provided police with video surveillance.

Timothy Huck, the bar's owner, said the video is very disturbing, and shows Payne, who is a large man, breaking the cue stick over Skaggs'
face with one powerful blow, reports KSLA-TV.

"His hand was all the way back, and he's swinging like a baseball bat, after three aggressive steps in," said Huck.

Skaggs has been released from the hospital, but once his swelling is down, he'll have to undergo surgery on his injured eye.

"It is a hate crime, I didn't do anything, it turns out he told people he knew I was gay, and he was going to beat me up," said Skaggs.

Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith, who adopted a Louisiana-born baby boy in 2006 through a court in New York, filed suit in 2007 after they were refused the certificate by Louisiana registrar Darlene W. Smith, citing state laws barring unmarried couples from adopting children in Louisiana.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that that Louisiana is required to give "full faith and credit" to the New York adoption decree, upholding the 2008 judgment of the district court.

Judge Jacques Wiener Jr. wrote that Louisiana law "does not vest the Registrar with the discretion to refuse to make a new, correct birth certificate for a Louisiana-born child" when the New York adoption decree "indisputably satisfies" Louisiana requirements.