Butterfly Cauldron
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Thinking of the children, for real.
Another ray of sanity, this time out of Indiana.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s Supreme Court let stand a ruling that allows unmarried couples, including those of the same sex, to adopt children through a joint petition that gives both partners equal custody.
In a 4-1 decision posted Friday, the high court refused to hear arguments in the case. That left in tact the April ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals, which had overturned a lower court’s ruling that state law limits adoption to married couples and individuals.
“The court acknowledged that two people can create a caring, stable, loving home for children without being married,” said Patricia Logue, senior counsel for Lambda Legal’s Midwest office in Chicago. “Not only is this a decision that will keep our clients’ family intact, but this is a victory for the thousands of children in Indiana desperately in need of a caring home.”
Logue represented a lesbian couple from Morgan County whose 2004 attempt to adopt a baby girl was approved by a judge in one county but denied by a judge in another.
Attorney General Steve Carter had hoped the state’s highest court would overturn the 2-1 appeals ruling.
Carter’s aides did not return messages left Friday by The Associated Press
I'm not sure how friendly Indiana is to GLBT people, but this is hopeful. Children need love, stability, discipline -- those things can come from either sex. So long as both halves of a couple is capable of caring for a child, what they do in their bedroom shouldn't be relevant. Adoption can make wonderful families and children deserve that. (As the aunt of an adopted child, I speak with a little experience. It always amazes me how quickly we forgot she was adopted. She's just ours. She always has been, always will be. I think of all the other children that are in need of homes and think, please gods, let them find them. Let them find what Kady has. Gay, straight, bi, whatever, let those children find families that love and want them as much as we want her.)
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s Supreme Court let stand a ruling that allows unmarried couples, including those of the same sex, to adopt children through a joint petition that gives both partners equal custody.
In a 4-1 decision posted Friday, the high court refused to hear arguments in the case. That left in tact the April ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals, which had overturned a lower court’s ruling that state law limits adoption to married couples and individuals.
“The court acknowledged that two people can create a caring, stable, loving home for children without being married,” said Patricia Logue, senior counsel for Lambda Legal’s Midwest office in Chicago. “Not only is this a decision that will keep our clients’ family intact, but this is a victory for the thousands of children in Indiana desperately in need of a caring home.”
Logue represented a lesbian couple from Morgan County whose 2004 attempt to adopt a baby girl was approved by a judge in one county but denied by a judge in another.
Attorney General Steve Carter had hoped the state’s highest court would overturn the 2-1 appeals ruling.
Carter’s aides did not return messages left Friday by The Associated Press
I'm not sure how friendly Indiana is to GLBT people, but this is hopeful. Children need love, stability, discipline -- those things can come from either sex. So long as both halves of a couple is capable of caring for a child, what they do in their bedroom shouldn't be relevant. Adoption can make wonderful families and children deserve that. (As the aunt of an adopted child, I speak with a little experience. It always amazes me how quickly we forgot she was adopted. She's just ours. She always has been, always will be. I think of all the other children that are in need of homes and think, please gods, let them find them. Let them find what Kady has. Gay, straight, bi, whatever, let those children find families that love and want them as much as we want her.)
Labels: adoption, court rulings, homosexuality
4 Comments:
from what i have seen of indiana, they are no more unfriendly to glbt as any other rational state in the nation. which is to say, way more tolerant than most southern states, but not as tolerant as say, ny or ca.
and speaking of adoption, i don't know if you've ever done this, but if you really want to piss off a "pro-lifer" ask them how many kids they've adopted. :)
Oh yeah. I do that. They just look at me and usually say something like "Well...I can't afford a child right now..." But that same reason to have an abortion isn't good enough...riiight.
That's one thing I'll say about my family, though. They're way seriously pro-life, but they will step up and adopt. So, at least they're not totally hypocritical.
My brother and I haven't been at home for years, but my parents always, always, always have some kid or other at their house. They're the unofficial foster family of the neighbrohood. And my brother/s-i-l are trying to adopt again. But it's not easy, you know? Which is so stupid, since so many kids need homes. It took them almost four years to get Kady and she's almost three now and they've been trying to adopt again since she was a couple months old. And they're the perfect adopting couple. White, middle-class, good jobs, good home, extended family that's supportive, a previous successful adoptions...but the costs are crazy.
my ex wife and i were considering adoption but we had way too much debt to be considered "good parents" by any adoption agency. i hate to think what we would have done if there was some kind of emergency considering the state of our finances at the time.
God, I know how that feels. And it's unfair to have something so subjective be the determining factor in whether you get a child or not. Kids shouldn't be handed out to just anyone who wants them (although, that's how most people get them naturally) but there are other factors than how much money you've got that should matter more.
The debt load of most people in this society is crazy. I know that I've got a good 65K in student loan debt that I can't pay back yet, because I can't find a job that pays me well enough. Add on top of that my medical bills and I'm so totally screwed. Completely living paycheck to paycheck and if something horrific happens, I can't even declare bankruptcy anymore due to the change of the laws.
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