I tend to agree with RNATB, but courts almost universally never, ever, ever consider the “rights” of any adoptive parents, gay or straight. The focus is on the “best interests of the child.” Courts repeat that over and over again: Yes, it was unfair to you, parents, what happened, but we are doing what is best for the child.
If studies did actually show that straight parents were better, would that be enough to overcome an equal protection argument? Probably not. Such an argument was struck down with regards to interracial couples. Palmore v. Sidoti Google Scholar
The couple passed all testing to become foster parents & were approved by the department of social services, so yes they have that right. The judge only got involved when the attempted to permanently adopt the child. And because this is the pit…
One doesn’t so much read Revelations as gape at it in shock, horror and dismay. Go ahead, read any three chapters and tell me they didn’t have bad acid in the first century C.E.
If anyone is interested in being a little more outraged, I suggest reading this article from Buzzfeed (they do have several really well-written and well-researched articles each week, amongst all the chaff) about “identified deaths, sex abuse, and blunders in screening, training, and overseeing foster parents at the nation’s largest for-profit foster care company.”
I’ve only read that one article about the foster system and it has stuck with me. It was the first thing I thought of when I read this news from Utah today. Hetero foster parents are KILLING children and…this!!!
Sick, is what it is. To rip a child from her perfectly good parents and possibly put her directly in to harm’s way is…sick.
You are not the only one. One of the mothers said this, as quoted in the Washington Post:
Last week an influential and popular Mormon themed podcast host John Dehlin, excommunicated this year for his support of LGBT rights, among other matters, published the normally kept secret changes to the handbook.
The changes not only were as given, but also specified that any couples in same sex marriages were guilty of appostity and that their children could not receive baptism or even simply be blessed. They would have to wait until they are adults no longer living with their parents and they would have to denounce their parents’ same sex marriage.
This has kicked up a huge shit storm in Mormondom and ex-Mormondom, sparking another round in the fight. This case is another example of how Mormon homophobic teachings from the pulpit are received by their members.
The Mormon church had recently doubled down on gay marriage. They sort of cooled off things after it came out that the church and its members were the largest factor for Prop 8, but when SSM marriage was allowed in Utah by first by the local federal court and then allowed again when SCOTUS make its ruling this year. Dogs and cats lying down together and all that.
I had to stop receiving receiving facebook feeds from all my Mormon relatives with all the antigay crap they would openly post. I still have a Mormon friend who is cool about it, so they aren’t all bigots, but there are plenty of them.
This handbook change is big for Mormons because the charge is apostasy and not immoral action. This places people who had simply decided to marry the person they love in a worse position in the church than almost everyone else, law breakers and all.
Someone who molests his daughter MAY be subject to church discipline and the punishment would likely be less than a married gay couple who MUST be disciplined, and is subject to automatic excommunication. It’s fucking insane.
My father, a worthless piece of shit who physically, mentally and emotionally abused my mother and all of us kids, as well as molesting both my sisters and a cousin had a slap on his wrist where my sister and her partner of 25+ years would be subject to excommunication, were they to actually get married. I know of others in similar circumstances.
For my sister and her partner, it doesn’t matter because they’ve both seen the light and left the brainwashing, but still, their are LGBT individuals who do still want to associate with that homophobic organization. OTOH, if my sisters someone were married and someone were to rat out them out to the local bishop, he would be obliged to start proceedings, despite their inactivity. This would hurt my still very Mormon mother.
This kind of shit ruins families and causes such unnecessary pain. I can’t imagine how my mother is feeling now, hearing these things again in the news and blaming herself for raising apostate children. She’s told of how much it hurts her to have a gay daughter. Where did she get that self loathing from?
So this Mormon asshole judge follows what the leaders are saying. No big surprise.Someone can come along and try to handwave the timing away, but with less than a week separating the well publicized leak of the secret handbook for local lay leaders and this Mormon judge’s ruling, you have to assume that the judge is simply following what is the apparent wish of his ecclesiastic leaders.
The good news is that the state is appealing the ruling and with all the bad publicity it should be reversed fairly soon. Mormons really believe that if people just knew how wonderful they are, everyone would join, so they are really gun shy about negative news.