Strasbourg overturns an adoption refusal
Strasbourg ruled in favour of a lesbian teacher: her orientation is no reason to deny an adoption.
On 22 January 2008, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg delivered a ruling that carried weight for lesbian and gay people throughout Europe. In the case "E.B. v. France", the Grand Chamber ruled that a French teacher had been discriminated against because of her sexual orientation when she applied to adopt.
The woman, referred to in the proceedings only by her initials, had been in a stable relationship with her female partner for years. At the end of the nineties, she applied for approval to adopt. French law also allowed single people to adopt a child. The authorities nevertheless refused. They pointed to the lack of a male role model in the household and to the partner's unclear attitude towards a future child. The French courts upheld the decision all the way to the highest instance.
Strasbourg saw it differently. By ten votes to seven, the majority held that the applicant's lifestyle had been the decisive factor in the refusal. Anyone who allows heterosexual single people to adopt may not exclude homosexual people solely because of their orientation. France had thus violated the prohibition of discrimination in conjunction with the right to respect for private life and had to pay the teacher compensation.
The ruling was also remarkable because the same court had decided differently only a few years earlier. At that time, a gay Frenchman had failed with an almost identical complaint. The narrow majority of 2008 marked a U-turn.
The ruling did not yet bring joint adoption for same-sex couples. In France, that only came with marriage equality. But it set a principle that people in all member states of the Council of Europe could invoke: sexual orientation alone is no reason to deny someone's suitability as a parent.