Posted on 08/05/2003 8:28:13 AM PDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:43:10 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The California Supreme Court upheld the validity of thousands of adoptions by gay and lesbian couples Monday, ruling that a popular adoption procedure used by same-sex couples is legal.
In a 6-1 decision hailed as a major victory for gay rights, the justices said state law allows second-parent adoptions, an arrangement in which a birth parent keeps a child while also agreeing to have it adopted by a second parent.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Two women and a horse, a man and a fish, three women and a goat….
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S102671.PDF
CONCURRING and dissenting OPINION BY BROWN, J.
The court in Marshall retroactively authorized a second parent adoption by the new husband of a widow and held that "a husband and wife may jointly adopt a child . . . the result of which is to make the child, in law, the child of both spouses." (Marshall, supra, 196 Cal. at p. 767, italics added.) The majority both disregards the context and finds the italicized language immaterial, concluding instead that the opinion authorizes adoption by any couple wishing to adopt, regardless of marital status. This reads contemporary norms into a 1925 decision, when the prevailing precedents deemed marriage "the most important relation in life, and one in which the state is vitally interested. . . . The well-recognized public policy relating to marriage is to foster and protect it, to make it a permanent and public institution, to encourage the parties to live together, and to prevent separation and illicit unions." (Deyoe v. Superior Court (1903) 140 Cal. 476, 482.)
III. The Majority Trivializes Family Bonds
Parenthood instead is the opportunity and responsibility to join the web of human connectedness through which we touch the past, the present, and the future. The relationship of parent and child is the most fundamental bond humans share and the influence of family in determining what kind of people we become is profound. Society has a considerable stake in the health and stability of families, because it is upon the families—what Burke calls "the little platoon—that we rely [on] not only to nurture the young but to provide the seed beds of civic virtue required for citizenship in a self-governing community. [The family teaches us to] care for others, [and] to moderate . . . self-interest . . . ." (Berns, The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy (1976) p. 222.) All tasks which will be hampered if the family is simply "a collection of individuals united temporarily for their mutual convenience and armed with rights against each other." (Schneider, Moral Discourse and the Transformation of American Family Law (1985) 83 Mich. L.R. 1803, 1859.) The "arduous, long-term educational process [of raising a child] requires not a spirit of contractualist autonomy, but a spirit of adult commitment and . . . sacrifice." (Hafen, Individualism and Autonomy in Family Law: The Waning of Belonging (1991) 1991 BYU L.Rev. 1, 30.)
The majority, irretrievably committed to its the-more-parents-the-merrier view of parenthood, declines to interpret section 8617 to effectively preclude a child from having more than two parents; and at oral argument Annette’s counsel asserted no such limit should exist. Such a position is consistent with the stunted view of parenthood as purely ministerial and economic—signing consent slips and providing health insurance. But this is the least part of being a parent, as anyone who has ever seen a newborn resting securely in her father’s hand can understand; and anyone who has sat up late at night awaiting the safe return of a newly minted teenage driver knows. The all-encompassing nature of parenthood renders eminently reasonable any legislative provision requiring that adopting parents share a common residence with each other and the adopted child. (See Fam. Code, § 297, subd. (b)(1).) Parenthood requires more than a telephone and a checkbook.
Finding: Relationship violence was found to be a significant problem for homosexuals. Forty-four (44) percent of the gay men reported having experienced violence in their relationships; 13 percent reported sexual violence and 83 percent reported emotional abuse. Levels of abuse ran even higher among lesbians: 55 percent reported physical violence in their relationships, 14 percent reported sexual abuse, and 84 percent reported emotional abuse.
Sample or Data Description
499 ethnically diverse homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered teenagers and adults
Source
Susan C. Turrell
"A Descriptive Analysis of Same-Sex Relationship Violence for a Diverse Sample"
Journal of Family Violence.
Vol. 13, Number . , 2000. Page(s) 281-293.
Finding: The median age of death for those who regularly engage in homosexual behavior leaned in the direction of less than 50. The data suggest a "20- to 30-year decrease in lifespan" because of "substantially evelated rates of sexually elevated diseases . . . cancer and heart conditions, and violence among homosexual men and women."
Sample or Data Description
Four data sets: obituaries from the homosexual press; two 1994 sexuality surveys; homosexual marriage records for Scandinavia; and Colorado medical records
Source
Paul Cameron, Kirk Cameron, and William L. Playfair
"Does Homosexual Activity Shorten Life?"
Psychological Reports.
Vol. 83, Number . , 1998. Page(s) 847-866.
Finding: "Incest was more common among bisexuals and homosexuals of both sexes" than among heterosexuals. While less than 0.8 percent of heterosexual males reported have had sex with a brother, 12 percent of homosexuals reported having had sex with at least one brother.
Sample or Data Description
More than 9,100 adults in U.S. metropolitan areas
Source
Paul Cameron, and Kirk Cameron
"Does Incest Cause Homosexuality?"
Psychological Reports.
Vol. 76, Number . , 1995. Page(s) 611-621.
Finding: Rates of illicit drug use among homosexuals is well in excess of the national average. Among homosexual men, ages 18 to 25: 79.2 percent have used marijuana; 75 percent have used psychotherapeutics for nonmedical reasons; 65.2 percent have used stimulants such as dexedrine and benzedrine; 62.5 percent have used inhalants such as amyl or butyl nitrate; and 50.2 percent have used hallucinogens such as LSD. Rates among lesbians: marijuana, 82.4 percent; psychotherapeutics, 58.8 percent; stimulants, 52.9 percent; inhalants, 41.2 percent; and hallucinogens, 41.2 percent. Comparing current usage to national usage, homosexuals were found to use drugs with greater frequency: "Among adults aged 18-25, 16.5 percent of men and 9.1 percent of women have used marijuana in the past month, compared with 37.5 percent of gay men and 23.5 percent of lesbians."
Source
William F. Skinner
"The Prevalence and Demographic Predictors of Illicit and Licit Drug Use Among Lesbians and Gay Men"
American Journal of Public Health.
Vol. 84, Number . , 1994. Page(s) 1307-1310.
Finding: The childhood of children of homosexuals were considered more difficult than the childhood of children of heterosexuals. In 92 percent of homosexual-parented families, children mentioned having one or more problems or concerns. Of the 213 "score problems," 94 percent were attributed to the homosexual parent(s). Among appellate cases, the courts attributed 97 percent of the "harms" to children to the homosexual parent.
Sample or Data Description
Narratives from 52 homosexually parented families and files from 40 appeals court cases involving custody disputes between homosexual and heterosexual parents
Source
Paul Cameron, and Kirk Cameron
"Children of Homosexual Parents Report Childhood Difficulties"
Psychological Reports.
Vol. 90, Number 1. February, 2002. Page(s) 71-82.
The Weekly Standard had an outstanding piece in its last edition about the longer term goals of the anti-marriage brigade. This will certainly fall right in line.
God help us.
I've been jokingly referred to as 'breeder' by gay friends for years. I was always quite offended, by this seemingly innocuous reference. Now I know why. In championing their own status as couple and parent, is not the homosexual lobby relegating heterosexual adults to the status of 'cattle' on behalf of their reproductive efforts?
The only thing that happened here is that the second-parent rule applies only when there is consent on the part of both "parents."
Certainly! And has not this condition been depicted and trivialized in mainstream media through movies and sitcoms... Friends, Will&Grace, The BirdCage, and others. One would have to concluded that there has been a concerted effort in advance of this situation to make everyone accept that the outcome is both innevitable and morally acceptable.
And could we not assume that the next intellectual leap would be to determine that all children are wards of the state, and NOT to be afforded rights through the framework of a judicially obscurred multi-parental relationship?!
Certainly! And has not this condition been depicted and trivialized in mainstream media through movies and sitcoms... Friends, Will&Grace, The BirdCage, and others. One would have to concluded that there has been a concerted effort in advance of this situation to make everyone accept that the outcome is both innevitable and morally acceptable.
And could we not assume that the next intellectual leap would be to determine that all children are wards of the state, and NOT to be afforded rights through the framework of a judicially obscurred multi-parental relationship?!
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