Adoption based on thoughts of “natural law” and is “anthropological,”

Colombian bishops stress protection of adopted children

CNA STAFF, Feb 28, 2011 / 02:04 pm (CNA).- The Bishops’ Conference of Colombia is calling on the country’s Constitutional Court to reject arguments in favor of the adoption of children by same-sex couples.

The bishops stressed that the rights of children should be placed above “the affective and emotional needs of same-sex couples.”

The bishops’ call came after the Constitutional Court announced Feb. 23 that it would hear arguments on whether to grant custody of a young girl to her mother and her lesbian partner. The child was conceived through artificial insemination.

The Constitutional Court will issue a final ruling on the case after two lower courts ruled that the adoption should take place.

The secretary general and spokesman of the bishops’ conference, Bishop Juan Vicente Cordoba spoke with CNA on Feb. 25, noting that adoption is a “juridical mechanism” the state of Colombia employs to place a child in a two-parent home made up of a mother and father.

This is meant to “replace what was lost, namely, the child’s biological mother and father, and the child is given a substitute mother and father so he can have a new home,” the bishop said.

Such a process is founded upon “natural law” and is “anthropological,” he explained. “It has nothing to do with faith.”

Bishop Cordoba noted that a poll was carried out recently showing that “82 percent of Colombians do not support the adoption of children by same-sex couples.”

“We told the court not to rule based on the ideas of five or six of its members, but rather on those of 45 million Colombians, of whom 82 percent do not want gay adoption,” he said.

“Five people cannot decide for 45 million,” the bishop explained, adding that the bishops have asked the court “to take into account the will of the Colombian people in its ruling.”

Bishop Cordoba, noting the psychological aspect of the issue, pointed out that children raised by same-sex parents “face great difficulties.” 

“Some may grow up to be healthy but many grow up to become homosexuals, bisexuals or they will have identity problems that will affect their ability to sustain a relationship.”

Bishop Cordoba also rejected the statements by some that a child adopted by a same-sex couple would be denied the sacrament of Baptism. “The Church is universal and welcomes everyone,” he said. “The child is not at fault, and if they bring him to the Church to be baptized, the Church will baptize him. 

“He will be joyfully accepted in the Catholic Church,” the bishop concluded.

Gays tending to have the idea to have rights to have children

Gay Live

Het verdriet is enorm bij Peter Meurrens (37) en Laurent Ghilain (27). Het homokoppel heeft een zoontje van twee, Samuel, dat vastzit in een Oekraïens weeshuis. Dat blijft zo tot een Belgische rechter de vaderschapsband eindelijk wil erkennen. Koppen brengt vanavond hun verhaal.

Peter: “Adoptie kan in ons land, maar bleek in de praktijk zo moeilijk, dat we voor een draagmoeder kozen uit Oekraïne, waar dat legaal is. Maar niemand had verwacht dat uitgerekend de Belgische autoriteiten zouden tegenwerken.”

Het jongetje is verwekt met het zaad van Laurent bij een Oekraïense draagmoeder, die hem meteen na de geboorte zoals afgesproken afstond. De problemen begonnen toen de Belgische consul in Kiev de pasgeboren baby geen Belgisch paspoort wilde geven.
Bart Ouvry van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken: “De praktijk van draagmoeders is eigenlijk een leemte in de Belgische wet. Daardoor kunnen we de nationaliteit van het kind niet erkennen.”

“Eigenlijk zijn we te eerlijk geweest, we hadden hem beter meteen meegenomen met een toeristenvisum, dan was hij wel illegaal in België maar tenminste bij ons”, vertelt Laurent “Die meubeltjes staan hier nu twee jaar, de luiertafel zal niet meer nodig zijn en het bedje is intussen te klein.” Peter is vooral bang voor de toekomst: “Een jaar bij een Oekraïense pleegmoeder en een jaar in een koud weeshuis, daar komt een kind niet ongerept uit.”

Koppen: op donderdag 27 januari om 20.45 u. op één

Not all Gay for Celebs ' Adoption'

Gay and adopted Daily Mail columnist slams Sir Elton’s decision to have a baby

Andrew Pierce is an editor for the Daily Mail

Andrew Pierce, the consultant editor of the Daily Mail had penned a column criticising the decision of Sir Elton John and David Furnish to have a surrogate baby, despite being both gay and adopted himself.

Mr Pierce wrote: “I have no doubt of the couple’s ‘over whelming’ happiness and joy at the arrival of their son. I am quite certain that the child’s unorthodox parentage — he was born to an unidentified surrogate mother who had carried the child after being implanted with a donor egg from another mystery woman — will prove no barrier to the love the couple will lavish on him.

“Yet I can’t help feeling that his decision to become a father is another grotesque act of selfishness from Sir Elton, and that the child is a little Christmas bauble he and his partner have awarded themselves. How telling it is that he was born on Christmas Day.”

Mr Pierce in a sense echoes the sentiments of Christian fundamentalist Stephen Green who told the BBC that Sir Elton’s child is a “designer accessory” for the popstar.
However, unlike Mr Green, Mr Pierce does believe that gays couples should be allowed to adopt. He wrote: “I have two very good male friends who are in a civil partnership and have adopted a little girl. They will make wonderful parents not least because they are absolutely committed to each other, but also because one of them has given up his job to be a full-time parent.”

Mr Pierce points out that in almost ten years ago, Sir Elton argued that he was too old to be a parent, telling Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: “I have come to the conclusion that it is too late for me. Had it been 20 years ago, then I would definitely have done it. I don’t want to be 70 years old when my daughter turns 16.”

In reality Sir Elton will be 79 when his son turns 16.
Mr Pierce argues that Sir Elton wouldn’t have been allowed to adopt a child due to his age, so paid to create his own.

“He [Sir Elton] is also an ageing, pampered, self-indulgent millionaire — look at the absurd names he and Furnish have given the poor child, for heaven’s sake!

“And it is the nagging suspicion that Elton — a man who is by nature an obsessive — has simply acquired a son to satisfy his latest fixation that I find repellent.”

Mr Pierce touched on his own personal story, writing: “as an adopted gay man, I have no interest in having children of my own — although I don’t denigrate those who want to.
“Let’s hope Elton John’s son gets the same chances that I had, which had nothing to do with money. My parents had little of that.

“What they offered instead was the love and support of an ordinary, hard-working couple who were always there for their children. How often will Sir Elton be there for his son?”

The right to have a child ? No word about the right of adoptees...

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Yes, the North Carolina adoption ruling really is that bad

Since my post on Tuesday about the North Carolina Supreme Court ruling in Boseman v. Jarrell that second-parent adoption is not authorized by the state's statutes, I've received numerous disbelieving emails. Everyone wants me to say it's really not all that bad. Everyone thinks there must be a way around what the court actually did. So I'm going to use this post to clarify the status of gay and lesbian adoption in North Carolina.

First, the good news. A lesbian or gay man can adopt a child as a single person in North Carolina. Such an adoption is allowed regardless of whether the adoptive parent is living with a partner. In other words, the state has no ban on adoption by lesbians and gay men (as Florida did/does - the law is still on the books but the agency and courts are not enforcing it pursuant to an appeals court ruling that it is unconstitutional); nor does it ban adoption by a person who lives with an unmarried partner (as Utah and Arkansas do, although the constitutionality of the Arkansas ban is currently in the state supreme court).

The good news ends there. A same-sex couple cannot adopt jointly in North Carolina, because a separate statute (not at issue in Boseman) states that when an unmarried person petitions to adopt a child no other person can join in the petition. So two unmarried people, gay or straight, cannot adopt together in North Carolina. This eliminates both the ability of the couple to adopt a child from a public or private adoption agency and the ability of the couple to adopt together a child born to one of them. (In some states the way around the adoption statute's termination of the parental rights of the "natural" parent is for the couple to file a joint adoption petition whereby the bio parent loses her rights as a "natural" parent but simultaneously gains parental rights as an adoptive parent.)

And, in the most far reaching, shocking, and unique aspect of Boseman, all second-parent adoptions that have been granted in the state are void. With the stroke of a pen, hundreds of North Carolina children have gone from having two legal parents to having only one. While other courts have ruled that second-parent adoptions are not permitted, until this case none had ruled that all previously granted adoptions were invalid. The court ruled that a second-parent adoption granted in North Carolina is void ab initio, a Latin term for "from the beginning." The following analogy might be useful: a man and a woman can get a marriage license and even have a wedding ceremony, but if one of them is still legally married to someone else (whether s/he realizes it or not), the couple is not married. They have a signed piece of paper that says they are married, but when it matters legally, they are not married. They were never married...from the beginning. So it is with the adoption decrees now sitting in the files, or adorning the walls, of the state's same-sex couples. They were never valid, from the beginning.

The pieces of paper still exist, and, if not challenged, they may facilitate keeping a child on the nonbio mom's health insurance or letting the nonbio mom make a medical decision or pick up a child from day care. But the validity of the adoption can be challenged by anyone -- a relative who does not want the child to inherit as a grandchild of the nonbio mom's parents, for example; or the nonbio mom after the couple splits up, as Jarrell did in this case -- and then it will be as though it never existed.

When an egregious case surfaces, the lawyers who care about these issues (including me) will try to come up with theories to protect the well-being of the children. For example, there may be a child right now receiving social security survivors benefits because her nonbio mom died after a North Carolina second-parent adoption was granted. If the government tries to cut off those benefits, we're going to work hard to develop an argument that the child has a right to continuing receiving them. And we may indeed find something that works. We don't give up without a fight when it comes to justice for our families.

But the Boseman ruling is unusually extreme. I'll be looking to gay rights attorney par excellence Sharon Thompson to see what she comes up with next to protect the children of North Carolina's same-sex couples.