A Stitch in Haste

I was tempted to write a lengthy blogpost about this morning's USA Today article on the supposed "New Backlash," namely the attempt in several states to summarily ban gays from adopting.

But then I remembered it was USA Today. If they can't be bothered to write complete pieces, then why should I?

I think the Booby Grand Prize has to go to Mississippi — where gay singles can adopt but gay couples can't. Think about that for a moment. I guess it's the official public policy of Mississippi that it's better for a child to have one parent instead of two. Lovely.

One other thing deserves mention:

Patrick Guerriero of Log Cabin Republicans, a gay political group opposed to marriage and adoption limits, calls the strategy the next step by conservatives.

I was very much hoping for a "but" or an "and" to go along with that sentence, such as "...but insists that not all Republicans agree with this radical conservative agenda of bigotry..." or "...and is apologizing for the hateful conduct of this fringe element of the party..." But alas, nothing more, just "the next step by conservatives."

Ah, yes, gay Republicans — the political equivalent of rodeo clowns. Where would we be without them?

Where would we be indeed...

Meanwhile, for a real article on gay adoption, see here.

One of my favorite "I'm not a bigot" bigots is Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby. I've critiqued his (non-)bigotry before.

Now he wants to prove how not-a-bigot he is regarding gay adoption:

In psychology, "projection" occurs when someone attributes to others his own unpleasant beliefs or motivations. It is projection, for instance, when a liar assumes that everyone he deals with is dishonest, or when a man tempted by adultery accuses his spouse of planning to deceive him. Projection occurs in the public arena as well, as when supporters of racial preferences label "racist" those who believe the law should be strictly colorblind.

A fresh example of projection arrived the other day by way of a news release from the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation's largest gay and lesbian political organizations [via a press release] headlined "Boston Catholic Charities Puts Ugly Political Agenda Before Child Welfare," and a more perfect illustration of psychological projection would be hard to imagine.

So when gays dare to get uppity about being summarily dismissed as deviant perverts inarguably unqualified to raise children, we're "projecting," on a par with liars, adulterers and racists. And Jacoby is of course not a bigot for suggesting (projecting?) as much.

More:

Catholic Charities of Boston had announced that it was being forced to shut down its highly regarded adoption services, since it could not in good conscience comply with the government's demand that it place children for adoption with homosexual couples.

This is patently false. Catholic Charities is perfectly willing to place children with gay couples. Its board of trustees voted unanimously, 42-0, to reiterate that position. Eight members of the board resigned in protest over the "no gays need apply" announcement.

Catholic Charities is not being shut down by the government. Catholic Charities is not being shut down by its own "good conscience."

Catholic Charities is being shut down by Massachusetts' four Catholic bishops, who are acting against the very wishes of the organization itself.

And who are, of course, not bigots.

As the saying goes: You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.

Those who, like Jacoby, believe otherwise are just projecting.

ADDENDUM: And for those who think that Jacoby is too mild of a not-a-bigot, be sure to check out the wasabi version, Mike S. Adams, who is selecting a new religion based solely on how much it hates gays. But of course he's not a bigot either.

Professional bigot Maggie Gallagher joins the chorus of the pre-FMA-vote mobsters by repeating -- one must presume knowingly -- a rather vicious lie about the Massachusetts "Catholic adoption" fiasco:

In 2003 the Catholic Church clarified its principles on adoption: Catholic agencies may not place children with same-sex couples. This spring a Boston Globe story revealed that Catholic Charities in Boston had in the past placed a small number of children in foster care with gay couples. The Archbishop (now Cardinal) Sean O’Malley made it clear: This would not happen in the future.
...
The Catholic Church asked both the governor and the legislature for a religious exemption, so it could carry on its work of helping children find homes. Governor Mitt Romney regretfully told Catholic leaders that he had no authority to issue an exemption. Leaders of the state legislature flatly refused to countenance what they called “discrimination.”

The net result is ... “State Puts Church out of the Adoption Biz.”

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

This is very simple: Massachusetts did not shut down Catholic Charities' adoption program. The people who run Catholic Charities did not shut down their adoption program. It was exclusively and entirely Massachusetts' four bigot-bishops (now three bishops and a cardinal) who, exercising dictatorial control over the agency, summarily ordered the adoption program terminated.

But perhaps the four bigot-bishops were merely expressing the collective will of their parishioners and of the dedicated experts who run Catholic Charities and its adoption program. How did lay Catholics and the professionals who actually work to place children with adoptive families feel about the bigot-bishops' decision?

In December, the Catholic Charities board, which is dominated by lay people, voted unanimously to continue gay adoptions. But, on Feb. 28, the four bishops announced a plan to seek an exemption from the antidiscrimination laws. Eight of the 42 board members quit in protest, saying the agency should welcome gays as adoptive parents.

Where is Gallagher's "will of the majority" god now? Unelected activist judges are bad, but unelected activist bishops are perfectly okay?

Pathetic.

As for the freedom of religion gobbledygook, remember that Catholic Charities, unlike a Roman Catholic Diocese, is itself not a "church" and therefore simply has no First Amendment protection from anti-discrimination laws. (Oh, sorry, I forgot, Gallagher insists on putting "discrimination" in scare quotes, just like she does with same-sex "marriage." How Washington Times of her.) When the Vatican is forced by law to ordain married lesbians as Roman Catholic priests, then Gallagher and her ilk will have a valid First Amendment case to make, but not before. (Incidentally, has she penned a single column about China's policies toward Catholicism? No? Go figure.)

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Meanwhile, Gallagher recently participated in a debate on marriage policy with Yale law professor William N. Eskridge Jr., sponsored by the CATO Institute. The debate coincided with the release of a major CATO policy paper opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment; see also here.

My previous Gallagher posts here.

"The best of America is reflected in the many citizens who have adopted children as their own. Mothers and fathers are the most important influences in a child's life, and children with caring, involved parents can better realize the full promise of America. Parents help their children thrive by encouraging them to aim high, work hard, and make good choices that will lead to healthy, satisfying lives. On November 18, loving families across America will celebrate National Adoption Day by finalizing their adoptions of children from foster care. This day will also raise awareness of the many children still waiting to be adopted and encourage more Americans to choose adoption."
--President George W. Bush, October 30, 2006

"I believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman. I believe it's a sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the well-being of families, and it must be defended."
--President George W. Bush, October 26, 2006

Only two kinds of people could make those mutually exclusive statements within a few days of each other: schizophrenics and politicians.

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Meanwhile, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears has an op-ed calling for "strengthening marriage" --

[S]tudies have consistently shown that children raised outside marriage suffer disproportionately from physical and mental illness; are more likely to drop out of school, abuse drugs or alcohol, and engage in violence or suffer it in their homes; and are less likely to attend college. Child Trends, a nonpartisan research organization summed up the evidence in 2002: "Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in step-families or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes."

Isn't this all the more reason to allow gay marriage — to reduce all these terrible risks to children, especially disadvantaged children, by sanctioning a whole new category of married parents?

Actually, the piece has a quite noticeable lack of discussion of same-sex marriage, one way or the other. Which, from a gay perspective, could be read either constructively (i.e., "phew, not another bigot screed") or cynically (i.e., "read between the lines").

Tony at Rolling Doughnut (who is not gay) comes down on the "cynic" side. I'm undecided.

A sad example that gays can indeed be just like everyone else -- including sometimes being petty and narcissistic:

[Sara] Wheeler, 36, and her partner, Missy, decided to start a family together and share the Wheeler last name. In 2000, Sara Wheeler gave birth to a son, Gavin, through artificial insemination. Two years later, they decided Missy Wheeler should adopt the child and legally become his second parent.
...
Georgia law doesn't specifically say whether gay parents can adopt a child, so the decision was up to a judge in the Atlanta area's DeKalb County. After an adoption investigator determined that both partners wanted it, the judge cleared the request.

The couple's relationship later soured.

Bottom line: Sara is now suing to exclude her ex-partner from the child's life -- on the grounds that gay adoption is illegal in Georgia. She is willing, indeed eager, to sacrifice the entire gay community in order to pursue her own irrational agenda.

Some hasty stitches:

--Sara insists, "it's about motherly rights." Utter nonsense. And, admittedly, it is not (directly) about "gay rights" either. The only permissible consideration here is the best interests of the child. What kind of ogre would seek to exclude a loving, competent adult from a child's life? This is parental narcissism of the most odoriferous kind -- on a par with the worst child custody battles of the heterosexual world.

--Sara insists, "since nothing in Georgia law specifically allowed gay adoption, the adoption should be tossed out." Also utter nonsense. See OCGA § 19-8-3. Furthermore, the impossible-to-ignore gaggle of bigot amendments, including of course Georgia's, warrant the polar opposite of Sara's position: If it's not explicitly banned, then it's presumptively legal. Isn't that among the most basic premises of "the American way"?

--Respect for judgments and decrees is a critical element of the rule of law. What a dangerous precedent it would be if courts could start "de-adopting" people who don't wish to be de-adopted -- or "de-marrying" people who don't wish to be de-married. Even the bigots in Massachusetts are not willing to go quite that far in their mean-spirited attempt to overturn the Goodridge same-sex marriage decision in that state.

Sara has lost at both the trial court and intermediate court level. She is now seeking a hearing before the Georgia Supreme Court. Stay tuned.

Possibly of interest --

Adoption and Foster Care by Gay and Lesbian Parents
in the United States

by

Gary J. Gates & M.V. Lee Badgett (The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law) and Jennifer Ehrle Macomber & Kate Chambers (The Urban Institute)
An excerpt:

Currently half a million children live in foster care in the United States and more than 100,000 foster children await adoption. States must recruit parents who are interested and able to foster and adopt children. Three states currently restrict GLB individuals or couples from adopting. Several states have or are considering policies that would restrict GLB people from fostering.

Recent government surveys demonstrate that many lesbians and gay men are already raising children, and many more GLB people would like to have children at some point. We estimate that two million GLB people have considered adoption. Since prior research shows that less than one-fifth of adoption agencies attempt to recruit adoptive parents from the GLB community, our findings suggest that GLB people are an underutilized pool of potential adoptive parents.

The three states with restrictions against gay adoption are Florida (no homosexuals whatsoever*), Mississippi (no same-sex couples) and Utah (no unmarried couples regardless of sexual orientation). Only Nebraska forbids gays from serving as foster parents (Utah forbids all unmarried couples).

As I've blogged previously, the anti-gay bigots hit quite a remarkable roadblock when they attempted to bootstrap their string of state constitutional amendments into a push for bans on gay adoption. Score one not only for gays, but for the kids too.

But that doesn't tell the whole story:

However, one third of agencies would reject a gay or lesbian applicant, either because of the religious beliefs guiding the agency, a state law prohibiting placement with GLB parents, or a policy of placing children only with married couples.

Furthermore, the discretionary power of social workers in many agencies probably results in some finding that individual GLB parents are unsuitable because of their sexual orientation, even in the absence of a public prohibition.

Clearly, anti-gay adoption bigotry remains. Moreover, adoption is repeatedly used as a canard by theocrats to assert, falsely, that equal rights for gays "undermines" freedom of religion (even though an adoption agency is not a church).

Meanwhile, the children continue to languish in foster care.

What kind of ignoramus could possibly conclude that life in foster care is better than life with a qualified gay individual or couple? How is that consistent with "Christian" compassion? It boggles the mind.

The full 43-page PDF report is available here.

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(*There is currently a campaign to repeal the "no gays never" adoption policy in Florida.)

(For Terrance.)

One of the darkest days (and there have been several) in gay rights litigation was January 10, 2005, when the Supreme Court announced that it would not hear an appeal to Florida's ban on gay adoption.

There was widespread hope, indeed a reasonable expectation, that the Court would take the appeal. Lawrence v. Texas was then still new news -- it had been handed down only 18 months earlier; the momentum it would generate was still unclear. The Court had recently expressed an interest in other family law matters (e.g., visitation rights of grandparents), and there was already a broad consensus that "adoption is different," that the near-universal legal doctrine -- that the only permissible criterion for evaluating adoptive parents or adoption policy is "the best interests of the child" -- surely pre-empted any attempt to codify irrational discrimination against otherwise qualified potential adoptive parents who happened to be gay. Would the courts actually allow children to be sacrificed at the altar of anti-gay bigotry?

Yes. At least in Florida. At least for the time being.

In the time since, a sea change has occurred. Anticipating a cascading effect from the "backlash" against gay marriage at around the same time (i.e., November 2004), many gay activists and observers, dejected and depressed, simply assumed that "adoption would be next." So too did the bigots: several radical social conservative groups introduced the same kind of measures to ban gay adoption that swept like a cruel plague through the redneck red states.

But this time, it didn't work.

For the most part, such proposals fell on deaf ears. It's one thing, apparently, to oppress gay adults. But even the bigots said, in large numbers: Leave dem kids alone!

Perhaps it was because there were already so many examples of successful gay adoptions -- doomsday had never come the way it would supposedly come to Massachusetts for having "wrecked traditional families." Perhaps it was the self-apparent need to leave no adopter behind: Florida passed its bigot ban while 8,000 innocent children languished in foster care; there are 150,000 such children nationwide. Maybe grassroots anti-gay activism burned itself out. Or maybe it really was "only about marriage."

In any case, the forest fire of antipathy toward same-sex marriage never spread to prophylactic bans on gay adoption. No state banned gay adoption as part of the "backlash" (but see this post). (Mississippi bizarrely bans gay couples but not gay singles from adoption. I can't begin to fathom the reasoning there. Utah, meanwhile, has a long-standing ban on any unmarried couples, straight or gay, from adopting. Because Utah loves its needy children so much that it will not hesitate to keep them in "compassionate" foster care and out of stable but unwed homes.)

Fast forward to today:

The organization hoping to stop unmarried couples from adopting or becoming foster parents in Arkansas got the go-ahead Thursday to start a petition drive to earn a spot on next year's general election ballot.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel certified the Family Council's proposed [initiative] act, clearing the way for the conservative organization to begin collecting signatures. If enough have been gathered by summer, the proposal will qualify for the ballot in the Nov. 4, 2008, election.
...
The measure is the Family Council's latest response to the 2006 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional the state's administrative ban on homosexuals serving as foster parents.

One preliminary hasty stitch: This is not a state constitutional amendment -- merely a voter initiative. It can be overturned by a two-thirds vote of the Arkansas legislature or struck down by the courts (something they did not hesitate to do in the past).

Why an initiative and not a constitutional amendment? One possible reason is that the signature requirement is significantly lower for an initiative in Arkansas than for an amendment. Draw your own inferences.

Meanwhile, here's what separates (most) gays from (most) bigots. We have no interest in conscripting children as our foot soldiers in the culture wars. We want this hateful, un-Christian, child-abusing measure to go quietly into that bad night. We want it not to receive enough signatures. If it does, then we want it to be defeated at the polls. If it is not, then we want the legislature to promptly overturn it. If it does not, then we want state judges to promptly strike it down. If they don't, then we want federal judges to strike it down. The one thing we don't want is to see Arkansas foster parents' names on another Supreme Court petition.

Even if that's the only way to revisit the Florida ban and to elevate forevermore the interests of children over the interests of bigots across the entire nation.

Not because such a petition might fail -- there is little downside in that at this point (unlike the heartbreaking and maddening same-sex marriage litigation losses in New York, Washington, New Jersey and now Maryland).

We want this abomination to implode quickly, and locally, precisely because we don't use and abuse children in this manner. We do not welcome the shackling of gay families in Arkansas today so that we might liberate gay families in Florida or Utah tomorrow. We don't use people -- we don't use children -- as pawns in the political process. For us it really is "all about the children."

And that's why we're better than the bigots.

More thoughts at Bilerico, Pam's House Blend, Good As You.

Thomas More would be pleased:

The Bishop of Nottingham Malcolm McMahon says his diocese will cut its ties with an adoption agency because it cannot accept the government's new laws on homosexual rights.

Bishop Malcolm McMahon said he and the trustees of the Catholic Children's Society adoption agency felt that they had been forced into the decision by the Sexual Orientation Regulations which bans discrimination against gays in the provision of goods and services. The law would compel the diocese in certain circumstances to place children in the care of same-sex couples.

"We have been coerced into this, I am not happy about it at all," Bishop McMahon said. "The regulations have coerced the children's society into going against the Church's teaching, and we don't wish to do that."

A Vatican directive issued in 2003 said it was morally wrong to place children in the care of same-sex couples.

As I have noted previously, the "Catholic" opposition to gay adoption is invariably imposed from on high -- from Church officials and not from the Catholic adoption professionals themselves. Vatican theocrats and their henchmen bishops in the dioceses not only turn a blind eye to the independent objective research that universally shows that gays as a group make as good parents as straights, but they even ignore their own employees working in and running the charities -- people whom, one would think, the Church has no basis to mistrust when it comes to the best interests of children (unlike, say, the Church's own child-rapist priests here in the U.S.).

Incidentally, this particular Catholic adoption agency -- one of 13 in the U.K. -- will not close but will simply merge with its Anglican counterpart. The Church has hinted that this will be the preferred approach rather than to shut the remaining agencies down. While this is obviously good news for the children, it suggests a touch of hypocrisy on the Church's part: Isn't gay adoption arranged by Anglicans just as abominable as gay adoption arranged by Catholics? Isn't the Church conspiring in the commission of an egregious sin by turning its facilities over to heretics and their sodomite clientele?

In reality, this merely confirms that the people actually running these agencies in fact have little or no problem with gay adoption -- Catholic, Anglican or otherwise. They're not the ones quitting over this, the Catholic priests are. That speaks volumes.

(Via Religion Clause.)

Others may disagree, but I think this child visitation ruling from Maryland's highest court is a victory:

At oral argument, we inquired of the parties, whether the fact that the parties were of the same sex in the case before the Court should have any bearing on our analysis. Neither argued that it should. Janice M. would embrace a single test for all third parties and would give no special consideration to same-sex partners. Margaret K., when asked, also did not argue for a different test for same-sex couples. Indeed, she acknowledged that, while there is no explicit legal or statutory authority in Maryland for adoption under the circumstances presented herein, she could have petitioned to become a second-party adoptive parent to Maya.

As background:

The Maryland case involved a woman referred to in court papers as Janice M., who adopted a child named Maya from India during her 18-year relationship with Margaret K. After the women ended the relationship, Margaret petitioned the court for custody and won visitation rights, and Janice appealed the decision.
...
Margaret did not try to adopt Maya and had "never had much interest in the child" until after the breakup.
...
Carrie Evans, policy director of Equality Maryland, the state's leading gay-rights group, said, "Now, the onus is on the General Assembly to fix this." She noted that same-sex partners would be most adversely affected by the ruling because they do not have the legal right to marry in the state.

I can't agree with that last comment. If you want to be a parent, and you have the ability to adopt, then adopt. It's a bit disingenuous to proclaim yourself a "de facto parent" to the child only after your adult relationship ends.

If Maryland had bigot laws forbidding gays, or gay couples, from adopting, then the analysis would of course be different. As I understand the decision, had the two adults been an unmarried heterosexual couple and the non-adoptive parent had sought custody after the breakup, then the same analysis would apply: Why didn't you adopt when you had the chance? Fair and equal treatment with no regard whatsoever to sexual orientation. The inability of Maryland gays to marry is irrelevant, at least in this specific fact pattern.

Isn't that the whole point?

The case, now under remand for additional fact finding, is Janice M. v. Margaret K., No. 122 (Md. Ct. App., May 19, 2008) (PDF - 56 pages)

As background:

Minority children in foster care are being ill-served by a federal law that plays down race and culture in adoptions, a report released on Tuesday said.

The report, based on an examination of the law's impact over a decade, said that minority children adopted into white households face special challenges and that white parents need preparation and training for what might lie ahead.
...
The report recommends that the law — the Multiethnic Placement Act, which covers agencies receiving federal dollars and promotes a color-blind approach — be amended to permit agencies to consider race and culture as one of many factors when selecting parents for children from foster care.

One can just see the anti-gay bigots putting the finishing touches on their talking points: If placing black children in white homes poses "special challenges," then does it not follow that placing (presumptively) straight children in gay homes also poses "special challenges"? If adoption should not be color-blind, then should it also not be sexual-orientation-blind?

If the bigots are willing to lie about "kids do best with a mom and dad," then surely they will also be willing to lie about "kids do best with their own kind — black with black, straight with straight."

And just to be clear: that would indeed be a lie —

The report points out that transracial adoption itself does not produce psychological or other social problems in children, but that these children often face major challenges as the only person of color in an all-white environment, trying to cope with being different.

No doubt, just as adopting a physically, mentally or emotionally handicapped child surely presents "major challenges." But people who are committed (and qualified), and who go out of their way, to undertake the greatest of all personal endeavors — adoption — will likely be able to confront those "major challenges," especially if they have the requisite information and preparation beforehand.

Which is really all the report is saying: Let the fact of the child's and the adoptive parents' race be one of several factors. Not a dealbreaker; not even a tiebreaker. Just a consideration.

To the extent that the debate is "capable white couple or capable black couple," the decision can admittedly be complicated and reasonable minds may disagree. But to the extent that the debate is "capable white couple or foster care," it's a slam dunk. Just as when the debate is "capable single person or foster care," there is really no debate at all.

So too, of course, when the debate is "capable gay couple or foster care" (or, worse, whether "capable gay couple" is an oxymoron, which is a question only a bigot could ask).