Gay Adoption: The New Demon Of The Christian Right's Lawmakers

WASHINGTON — Two Republican lawmakers have introduced new legislation aimed at allowing adoption and foster-care agencies to deny services based on their religious beliefs or moral convictions, but critics charge the bill would simply enable agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples.

With same-sex marriage bans dropping like flies in front of the Christian Right, the next strategy has taken its cue from their erstwhile victory with Hobby Lobby: "the right to discriminate is still OURS!"

“The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2014″ would “ensure that organizations with religious or moral convictions are allowed to continue to provide services for children” by prohibiting state and federal governments from terminating funding or contracts with local agencies over anti-discrimination laws."

To so many, the "Inclusion Act" is a downright act of exclusion, but the bill's sponsors, U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, (R-Wyo.), and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), don't see it that way.

From Enzi's website:

“This bill is about fairness and inclusion. It is about ensuring that everyone who wants to help provide foster or adoptive care to children is able to have a seat at the table,” said Kelly. “Faith-based organizations have historically played a downright heroic role in caring for our nation’s most vulnerable and needy kids. In so many ways their work is unparalleled. There is no good reason why any of these care providers should be disqualified from working with their government to serve America’s families simply because of their deeply-rooted religious beliefs.”

But "everyone" surely doesn't include same-sex couples, does it? To give gays a "seat at the table" would definitely be against someone's "deeply-rooted religious beliefs."

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops endorses the Act, perhaps because several Catholic agencies have had their funds curtailed in the states of Massachusetts, California and Illinois, states where same-sex marriage is legal. A chief endorsement came from San Francisco's own Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, an architect of Prop 8 (surprise!).

Old Demon - New Strategy

Bryan Fischer, the Christian Right's chief demonizer, stated back in 2012:

“There is a myth that homosexual couples can be just a good of parents to children as heterosexual couples, as married moms and dads,” Fischer insisted. “Absolutely, flatly, totally, completely not true. Same sex parenting is bad for kids period.”

“The bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, to put kids into this environment, it’s a form of sexual abuse all its own. To adopt kids into a same sex environment is a form of child abuse.”

Recent studies, however, are not a "myth": they show that gay parents are no more harmful to a child's upbringing than heterosexual parents. And the American Psychological Association has determined that "parenting effectiveness is not related to parental sexual orientation."

Gays as unfit parents has been the demonizing point of the Christian Right for years, but with the loss of the marriage debate in so many states, the strategy had to change: it is a defensive strategy, to be sure, but one based on the "freedom of religion" meme that worked in the Hobby Lobby case.

Where Are The Children?

The proposed "Inclusion Act" protects faith-based adoption agencies, but what about those "vulnerable and needy kids"? Does "every child deserves a mother and a father" trump loving adoptive parents? The bill would also allow agencies to discriminate against single parents and unwed mothers. People like Bryan Fischer would certainly not allow children to be adopted by women who "rut like rabbits." The Dan Quayle/Murphy Brown attitude still exists among the Christian Right. The single-parent dilemma, in fact, is the focus of the season finale of the hit comedy "Two and a Half Men" (with a nod to gay marriage).

So, in a sense, morality trumps child welfare. That a child might fare well in a same-sex or a single-parent household does not matter. Lawmakers may say they have the welfare of children at heart, those poor "vulnerable kids," but when it comes to pressure from the Christian Right, those same children might just be pawns in the culture war game.

Of course, for centuries, children have been pawns in politico-religious games. 

Maybe it's time to stop.

Remembering That Gabriel Had Two Mommies: A Mother's Day Tribute In The Wake Of Tragedy

Gabriel did not die because his moms were lesbian. His death was not the byproduct of homophobia. His fate was not because of a violation of any legal custody issues. His story is bigger than any of that. - Rob Watson, LGBTQNation

Mother's Day evokes memories of dedicated love: a love so deep and pure that it transcends even physical attachment. I was born in an institution called St. Vincent's Infant Asylum and Maternity Hospital (Chicago) and put up for adoption from birth. My (adoptive) mother first saw me when I was 15 months old. I've never had a wish to know anything about my birth mother. I've never had reason to. Evelyn S. Vojir was my real mother, after all. A womb is not necessarily a mother.

Adoptive parents have always been held to a different standard: their desire to nurture a child seems somehow stronger, more definite than natural parents, especially if they will take ANY child that is given to them. But gay adoptive parents' desire to nurture has been called to question by the Christian Right, the meme "every child deserves both a mother and a father" being thrust forward at every moment of the gay adoption debate.

The Tragedy of Gabriel

The 17-year-old father of a baby boy who died just weeks after his birth mother took him back from his lesbian adoptive parents has been charged with first-degree murder.
Four-month-old Gabriel King McFarland was found unresponsive on April 22 by his mother after she left the baby in the care of his father, Drew James Weehler-Smith, at their Des Moines, Iowa home.
The boy later passed away and an autopsy revealed that Gabriel died of an abusive head trauma, which authorities say he suffered at the hands of his teen dad.

The motive for the murder is not yet known, but one obvious cause of Gabriel's death is immaturity: immaturity and instability. A 16 year-old girl's fecklessness and inability to carry out commitment has caused more grief than joy. Her inability to ascertain the father's character was also a factor.

The video below goes at length about the causes of death and the circumstances, but the last two minutes may be the most telling of all: "why was this baby ripped away" from his loving adoptive parents?

Attorneys Everywhere - Protection Nowhere

One thing has come to light since the case was first reported: Heidi and Rachel McFarland hold their own attorney responsible for not filing the paperwork terminating parental rights.

“It’s a two-step process. The first step is to file a termination of parental rights. That process is normally started by obtaining a release of custody from at least one of the two parents,” [Ryan] Genest says. [Genest is a lawyer specializing in adoptions not related to the case]
From there the birth parents have a limited amount of time to change their minds.
“Any parent that signed the release, there’s 96 hours to change their mind. For any reason. If they fail to change their mind in those 96 hours they can ask the court to revoke their release, but at that point they have to show what’s called good cause,” Genest added.

96 hours is a far cry from two months - the entire time that the McFarland's had baby Gabriel.

The McFarlands also paid for lawyers for Gabriel's birth mother and Gabriel himself. They now have no money ... and no baby Gabriel.

Motive vs Cause

The father, 17-year-old Drew Wheeler-Smith, has yet to enter a plea - let alone a motive - for the murder of Gabriel, but the motive may determine the physical cause: if he believed that mother Markeya Atkins had changed her mind again and decided to give Gabriel back to her adoptive lesbian parents, then the issue becomes one of homophobia, but as Rob Watson has said, the tragedy of Gabriel transcends many issues. 

Homophobia. Immaturity. Attorney malfeasance. They may all have played a part in Gabriel's death ... and the McFarland's misery.

“We had been scrutinized, our life style has been scrutinized, the people in our lives have been scrutinized, we had to have letters of reference for this home study, to make sure we were…adequate as parents..” said Rachel, “ And, they never had to have anything when they took him back.”

Remembering Gabriel's Moms

In Rob Watson's letter to the McFarlands, he stated what the rest of us should feel for Gabriel's two moms:

In a few weeks, it will be Mothers Day. On that day, I will buy two roses to honor you. I will look on them and think of you, as you are: Gabriel’s Moms, now and forever.

Poor Paulie Ryan: The Boy Don't Get No Respect

"Adoption, I’d vote differently these days. That was I think a vote I took in my first term, 1999 or 2000," Ryan said. "I do believe that if there are children who are orphans who do not have a loving person or couple, I think if a person wants to love and raise a child they ought to be able to do that. Period. I would vote that way."

But he's against gay marriage. Whatever. His position on gay adoption just landed him in the doghouse of the Christian Right. Those little darlings who applauded him at the Values Voters Summit last year are now wailing and gnashing their teeth (not to mention rending their Walmart suits!). In their eyes, the Budget Slasher just slashed his own political throat for being pro-gay in any way.