Posted on 09/04/2002 9:25:47 AM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - Some of the same people who forced the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to put the names of two mommies on birth certificates are back. This time lawyers for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and their allies are using a case involving the breakup of a lesbian relationship to redefine some very important words, including parent, marriage, adoption and divorce.
The NCLR, the Colorado American Civil Liberties Union and the Colorado Legal Initiative Project, a gay rights advocacy group, all filed amicus briefs with the Colorado Court of Appeals on the very same day (June 27) in a case that was "sealed" from public view.
Obviously, it wasn't much of a seal if three groups, one based in San Francisco, knew enough about the case to file similar briefs on the same day.
When this writer inquired about the case months ago and again more recently, he was told no information would be released. Subsequent inquiries led to the release of about 250 pages of briefs a week or so ago.
Those court documents, from which the names of the parties have been redacted, show what is possible when an agreeable magistrate and an inattentive judge join forces to achieve a social result that is simply not authorized by Colorado law.
The case began in 1996 when one of the women in a lesbian partnership (call her Carol) adopted an infant from China. Under Colorado law, neither a same-sex couple nor an unmarried heterosexual couple is legally permitted to adopt a child. The other woman (call her Donna) was aware of this prohibition but both women agreed to jointly care for the child. The child (call her Evie) was told at an early age that she had two mommies. In 1996, Carol and Donna sought and obtained court approval of an agreement reflecting their wishes. Just five years later, their relationship ended.
Donna returned to court to request an order for equal parenting time, over the objections of the legal mother. Magistrate Diane Dupree issued a flatly contradictory ruling. She first held she didn't have jurisdiction in the case and voided the 1996 decree. She then went on to exercise jurisdiction and held that Donna was, in fact, a parent of Evie and ordered equal parenting time. The specific order was that each "mother" would have the child in alternating three-day cycles.
It needs to be said at this point that there are thousands of divorcing biological fathers with unblemished records who could never hope to win an award of 50 percent parenting time. Yet here was a Denver magistrate willing to make that award to a woman who is not the legal mother of the child, a woman who had not married, had not adopted and had not divorced.
This case originally reached the Court of Appeals with a plainly erroneous caption saying it concerned the "marriage" of the two women. That mistake is but one of many that have attended the case's passage through the court system.
As it now stands, the issues before the court of appeals are whether the parental rights of the adoptive mother have been violated since it is uncontested that she is a fit legal parent; whether the district court incorrectly interpreted a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the supremacy of parents' rights and whether the trial court was wrong to determine that a so-called "psychological parent" is entitled to the same stature as a fit legal parent.
This case is being decided in a legal vacuum. Colorado law doesn't include specific provisions for what rights, if any, a lesbian woman has when a relationship ends. The statute books have many pages on marriage, divorce, child support, etc., but these provisions clearly don't apply to most aspects of the current case.
The Court of Appeals is thus being urged to make up new rules affecting not just these two women and this child, but the general laws as they relate to everyone. On Sunday, I'll elaborate on why this is a huge mistake and why these issues should only be decided by the legislature.
The Court of Appeals is thus being urged to make up new rules affecting not just these two women and this child, but the general laws as they relate to everyone.
Big mistake to make new rules. The existing rules already cover this situation.
Is the plaintiff the biological mother of the child? NO
Is the plaintiff married to the biological mother or father of the child? NO.
Is the plaintiff the adopted mother of the child? NO.
The plaintiff is therefore, according to law, the same as the next door neighbor, the janitor, the guy down the block or me. That is, they are an unrelated stranger. This is exactly as it should be.
As another point of interest, this is why SADs should never be able to adopt. There is no such thing as a long term monogamous SAD relationship. (I suppose that somewhere one might exist but they are certainly not the norm)
God Save America (Please)
GSA(P)
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