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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday backed away from his support of adoptions by same-sex couples, saying that he simply "acknowledges" the legality of such adoptions in many states.Read the rest of this post...
A day earlier, Romney, in an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, had indicated that while he does not support same-sex marriage, he considers the adoption of children by same-sex couples a "right."
U.S. Supreme Court Denies Lambda Legal Appeal of Louisiana BirthRead the rest of this post...
Certificate Ruling
"The Supreme Court is leaving untouched a dangerous ruling that carves out
an exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S.
Constitution."
(Washington, DC, October 11, 2011) - The U.S. Supreme Court today denied Lambda Legal's petition for a writ of certiorari in the case of a same-sex couple seeking an accurate birth certificate for their Louisiana-born son whom they adopted in New York. The Louisiana state registrar has refused to recognize the adoption and issue a birth certificate listing both fathers as the boy's parents.
"By denying this writ, the Supreme Court is leaving untouched a dangerous Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that carves out an exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution and to the uniformly recognized respect for judgments that states have come to rely upon," said Kenneth D. Upton, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal's South Central Regional Office in Dallas. "This decision leaves adopted children and their parents vulnerable in their interactions with officials from other states."
"More particularly, this decision leaves a child without an accurate birth certificate listing both his parents," Upton added. "This issue now moves into the legislative arena. We need to push for a change in Louisiana state policy in order to stabilize and standardize respect for parent-child relationships for all adoptive children."
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 would not issue it with both adopted parents' names.
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 and Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by refusing to recognize the New York adoption judgment because the child's parents are unmarried. The Constitution requires that judgments issued by a court in one state be legally binding in other states. Further, a state may not disadvantage some children over others simply because the child's parents are unmarried. The Louisiana attorney general advised the registrar that she did not have to honor an adoption from another state that would not have been granted under Louisiana law had the couple lived and adopted there. In 2008, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey ruled against the registrar and 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, and a sharply divided court issued a decision this spring overturning the prior decisions.
In July Lambda Legal asked the U.S Supreme court to review the case arguing that the Fifth Circuit's ruling ignores nearly one hundred years of well-established Supreme Court law and conflicts with other federal circuits across the country. In August, the nation's leading child welfare organizations joined family law and constitutional scholars in support of Lambda Legal's petition for a writ of certiorari, filing six separate friend-of-the-court briefs. The signatories included: National Association of Social Workers; Child Welfare League of America; Center for Adoption Policy; Tulane School of Law - Juvenile Litigation Clinic; Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana; and more than 60 legal scholars.
"Unfortunately, same-sex parents who have or plan to adopt children are treated differently from state to state at this point," added Upton. "So we urge parents to check with an attorney and take every step they can to protect their families - and to call Lambda Legal's HelpDesk if they need more information."
The case is Adar v. Smith.
Kenneth D. Upton, Jr., Supervising Senior Staff Attorney, is handling the case for Lambda Legal. He is joined by Paul Smith of Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C., and Regina O. Matthews and Spencer R. Doody of Martzell & Bickford in New Orleans.
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Press contact: Tom Warnke, Cell: 213-841-4503: Email:
twarnke@lambdalegal.org
Jonathan Adams Office: 212-809-8585 x 267 Cell: 646-752-3251 Email:
jadams@lambdalegal.org
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| David Tyree, photo by Ted Kerwin |
The lesbian mother of three adopted children, Cassidy is well aware of what's at stake.There should be no compromise. And, no public money should fund discrimination. Read the rest of this post...
“To have your family's value questioned in a public forum is just mind-boggling to me,” Cassidy said. “As the only gay parent down there I have no intention of letting them do this.”
Catholic Charities gets about $30 million per year from the state of Illinois to provide foster care and adoption services for some 3,000 children. Catholic lobbyists have been trying to pass legislation this spring to give Catholic Charities and other religious-affiliated, state-funded agencies the right to turn away gay and lesbian couples after June 1. That's when the state's civil unions law takes effect, giving gay and lesbian couples in civil unions the same rights, at far as the state goes, enjoyed by married couples.
That means adoption agencies funded by state dollars won't be able to discriminate against those gay and lesbian couples unless Catholic lobbyists are successful in getting an exemption through the Legislature.
“I simply don't see the need to compromise over the legitimacy of our families,” Cassidy said.
A lesbian woman came up to me and said, ‘why are you denying me my right?’ I said, ‘well, because it’s not a right.’ It’s a privilege that society recognizes because society sees intrinsic value to that relationship over any other relationship.Santorum is an idiot. We know that.
When you put your mind to it, you can achieve just about anything!Great work to all involved. Read the rest of this post...
Thanks to hundreds of calls being made by people all over Illinois and all over the nation, the Senate panel in charge of overseeing SB 1123 rejected the discriminatory amendment to the bill, and sent the anti-gay set packing out of Springfield. The vote was very close: seven to six with one abstention.
"This is a huge victory for the LGBTQ community and families across Illinois," Anthony Martinez, Executive Director of The Civil Rights Agenda, said in a press release late Wednesday morning. "This is also a huge win for the tens of thousands of children that are in the adoption and foster system and need loving families. We applaud the members of the Executive Committee that voted no on this bill. They have shown that discrimination in any form is unacceptable." Full disclosure: I sit on the Advisory Board for TCRA.
The Arkansas Supreme Court has upheld a decision to strike down a state law barring gay couples and other unmarried people living together from serving as adoptive or foster parents.Again, the adoption ban was passed by the voters in 2008. And, now, it's gone.
The state's high court wrote in an opinion on Thursday that the law burdens the privacy of unmarried couples who live together.
A state judge struck down the law last April because he said it forced unmarried couples to choose between their relationships and becoming adoptive parents.
We have held in this case that a fundamental right of privacy is at issue and that the burden imposed by the State is direct and substantial. We now hold, as an additional matter, that because of the direct and substantial burden on a fundamental right, the standard to be applied is heightened scrutiny and not a rational-basis standard. Using the heightened- scrutiny standard, because Act 1 exacts a categorical ban against all cohabiting couples engaged in sexual conduct, we hold that it is not narrowly tailored or the least restrictive means available to serve the State’s compelling interest of protecting the best interest of the child.Here's the decision (H/T Sam P. for sending):
Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) told reporters at a Tuesday news conference that he opposes proposed regulations developed by his Democratic predecessor that would for the first time allow gay couples to adopt children in Virginia.Homophobia has deep roots in Virginia.
“I know I had said during the campaign that I would essentially keep our adoption laws -- which I think are good -- the way they are now,’’ McDonnell said. “I think the current regulations that are in place seem to be working well.”
Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is considering whether to try to derail proposed regulations developed by his Democratic predecessor that would for the first time allow gay couples to adopt children in Virginia.Marshall is one of the leading homophobes in Virginia, but he's got plenty of company, including the state's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
McDonnell has less than two weeks to act on the regulations that would force state-licensed private and church-run agencies to allow unmarried couples — heterosexual or homosexual — to adopt children.
Conservatives, including Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), are lobbying McDonnell to ask the State Board of Social Services to kill the proposal because they do not think it is healthy for gay couples to raise children.
Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation "should take precedence" over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.Pray tell, would this couple also like the right to tell Jewish foster kids that they're going to burn in hell unless they accept Christ? Because that's what the effect of them winning in court would be. Read the rest of this post...
They said that if children were placed with carers who objected to homosexuality and same-sex relationships, "there may well be a conflict with the local authority's duty to 'safeguard and promote the welfare' of looked-after children".
Same-sex couples with adopted children living in states with anti-gay adoption laws and attitudes had more mental health issues in their first year of parenthood than couples with adopted children living in more accepting states, a new study has found. In addition, same-sex couples with adopted children who perceived higher support from their family and workplace and lived in more gay-friendly neighborhoods reported better mental health than those who did not.Dr. Goldberg obviously knows what she is talking about:
Dr. Abbie Goldberg, assistant professor of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, co-authored the work with JuliAnna Smith at the Center for Research on Families of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Their report appears in the in February 2011 issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Psychological Association.Bigoted legislators need to stop hurting our children.
While studies show that many people, including straight ones, show an increase in depressive or anxious symptoms in early parenthood, Goldberg explained, most recover later. But, she added, higher levels of depression or anxiety “could have negative effects beyond the individual,” including among their children, especially if the factors causing them—unsupportive workplaces, families, neighborhoods, or laws—don’t change.I recommend reading the entire article to arm yourself with the facts the next time some Neanderthal conservative claims that they are "doing this for the children." Although the point can always be made, "When have facts stopped conservatives from passing bad or injurious legislation?" Read the rest of this post...
"This is the first time I felt a sense of closure, finality," Gill told me Friday night during an ACLU reception at the Shore Club hotel in South Beach. "I really felt relieved for the first time -- and a sense of pride for what we accomplished for the state of Florida.''And, check out the photos from last night's party, especially this one.
In the tight gubernatorial race, Democrat Alex Sink has said she would support same-sex adoptions, while her opponent, Republican Rick Scott opposes it.Read the rest of this post...
``What I believe is marriage is between a man and a woman . . I believe that children are raised in a more healthy environment if they are raised by a married couple,'' said Scott when asked in Wednesday's debate whether he thought homosexuality is immoral.
In the race for attorney general, Democrat Dan Gelber has praised the appeals court's decision and agrees gays should be able to adopt. His opponent, Republican Pam Bondi, has said she opposes gay adoption and has pledged to pursue an appeal.
Florida's attorney general is nearing a decision on appealing a court ruling that overturned the state's gay adoption ban.McCollum lost the GOP gubernatorial primary in September. His term as AG ends in a couple months. Today's decision will be part of his legacy.
Attorney General Bill McCollum must decide Friday. That's the deadline for seeking review of the ruling by the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami.
His client, the state's Department of Children and Families, already has decided against an appeal and has agreed not to enforce the law, but McCollum could pursue it on his own.
This morning the Third District Court of Appeals in Miami, FL upheld a lower court ruling that declared Florida's ban on gay and lesbian adoption to be unconstitutional.Seems like we're getting all of our good news from the courts these days. Read the rest of this post..."We affirm the judgment of adoption, which holds subsection 63.042(3), Florida Statutes, violates the equal protection provision found in article I, section 2, of the Florida Constitution."While the Appeals Court has affirmed the ban is unconstitutional, it is likely the case will end up in the Florida Supreme Court.
You can read the full decision here.
What a phenomenal day for Martin Gill and his family who have challenged this ban head on. A big congratulations to the legal team at the ACLU of Florida who worked so hard on this case.
Thank you to all the Floridians who have helped to expose the bigotry of this ban.
Q: Should the law [allowing gay couples to serve as foster parents] be changed?Once again, not just an attack on gay families and parents, but an insult to single parents. Read the rest of this post...
McCollum: I think that it would be advisable. I really do not think that we should have homosexuals guiding our children. I think that it’s a lifestyle that I don’t agree with. I realize a lot of people do. It’s my personal faith, religious faith, that I don’t believe that the people who do this should be raising our children. It’s not a natural thing. You need a mother and a father. You need a man and a woman. That’s what God intended.
Over the past year, a parade of studies have all set out to test that assumption. What makes this latest one different was that, for the first time, research on the social development and psychological health of children was not based on the opinions of their parents alone but also of outside observers (teachers and care givers.) And, also for the first time, a control group of heterosexual families was used. The University of Virginia and George Washington researchers studied preschoolers who were adopted at birth by 27 lesbian couples, 29 gay male couples and 50 heterosexual couples. (Yet another groundbreaking aspect to this study was the number of gay men who were included; to date most of the research has been on lesbian mothers.)Read the rest of this post...
What did they find? That it’s the quality of the parenting that creates a psychologically healthy child, not the sexual orientation of the parents.
The implication: From a public-policy stance, the study suggests there is “no justification for denying lesbian and gay prospective adoptive parents the opportunity to adopt children,” Patterson, the lead researcher, said.
A woman who raised two adopted children for years in a same-sex relationship is not considered their parent under Wisconsin law, an appeals court ruled Thursday.Read the rest of this post...
The court ruled against a woman who was seeking legal guardianship of two children for whom she had been a stay-at-home mother. The District 4 Court of Appeals ruled that only the woman's former partner is their parent since the adoptions were done under the partner's name.
"It's another slap in the face to gays and lesbians that we're not equal. We're not parents," said the woman's attorney, Michele Perrault.
A circuit judge today stuck down Arkansas’ ban against unmarried couples adopting or foster-parenting children.The ruling was based on the state constitution, not the U.S. constitution. Here's the Judge's decision:
Act 1, passed by voters in 2008, unconstitutionally burdens non-marital relationships and acts of sexual intimacy between adults by forcing them to choose between becoming a parent and having any meaningful type of intimate relationship outside of marriage, Circuit Judge Chris Piazza ruled in a lawsuit challenging the law.
“It infringes upon the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed to all citizens of Arkansas,” the judge ruled in the lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
Gay or straight, the sexual orientation of adoptive parents does not have an impact on the emotional development of their children, according to a new study....Read the rest of this post...
"We found that sexual orientation of the adoptive parents was not a significant predictor of emotional problems," Paige Averett, an assistant professor of social work at East Carolina University, said in a statement.
"We did find, however, that age and pre-adoptive sexual abuse were," she added.
