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Well, in most cases, if the parent that passed on specified in their will that the child was to be raised by the other partner after their death, the court would grant that. The grandparents could fight it, but they'd be unlikely to win unless the living partner was deemed somehow unfit.
A more unfortunate case would be if the child was extremely ill--whichever parent hadn't adopted him would probably have no legal rights to visit him in the hospital, for example. Or if a couple that was trying to adopt did not make a lot of money, they might not be eligible to adopt. (They might have a combined income that was enough to hit the minimum financial bar, for example, but would not meet it individually.) Or, of course, if they have enough money (and generally, if you're looking into adoption, you do) they can always go to another state that does allow gay adoption, which is what gay couples have been doing for years. Even some couples whose states allow a single gay parent to adopt, or second-parent adoption, will go out of their way to travel to a state where joint adoption is allowed, like Oregon (a la Dan Savage in The Kid) or Vermont.
So basically, while I agree with you that it sucks, I don't think it's a huge setback in the gay rights movement. Florida's LGBT adoption laws are far worse (they don't even allow a single LGBT parent to adopt). It's more of an empty gesture designed to intimidate than it will be a serious deterrent to gays who really want to adopt . . . as are all these silly no-gay-marriage propositions popping up over the last three major elections -- they're last ditch efforts by conservatives who know they'll be overturned in the next 15 years because every generation coming up is increasingly more supportive of gay marriage (young Americans now are something like 60%+ in favor of it) and their base who are vehemently against it are all 50+. Their days where they will have the support to pass measures like this are numbered, so they're trying to get it on the books while they still can. While the state of LGBT rights looks pretty abysmal right now, it's the calm before the storm.
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