Posted by So I posted the other day about the Federal judge striking down Oklahoma’s law that prohibited them from recognizing adoptions by gays performed in other states. You had to know the religious right was going to react by throwing a blizzard of empty catchphrases around, right? Here’s the little snippet in Agape Press, which labels the report Sooner State judge overrules pro-family statute:
“Another example of judicial activism at its worst.” That’s how the head of the Family Research Council is reacting to the latest court ruling favoring homosexuals. A U.S. district court judge has declared that Oklahoma’s law that prohibits state officials from recognizing same-sex adoptions from other states is unconstitutional.
Okay, we’ve got “judicial activism” and “pro-family” on the board. Do I hear “destroying marriage”? Why yes, I do:
FRC president Tony Perkins says this “stunning case” is just the latest example of why Congress must pass a constitutional amendment to prevent activist judges from destroying marriage in America.
Woohoo, the trifecta – three completely meaningless catchphrases in a single paragraph. Tell them what they’ve won, Johnny. Well, they’ve won my ridicule. First of all, let’s analyze this “pro-family statute”. The plaintiffs in this case included two female partners with twin 7 year old girls. One of them gave birth to the girls, but the other one is also a legal parent by virtue of adopting them in their then-home state of New Jersey. The two women are the only parents the twin girls have ever had. But this “pro-family” Oklahoma law means that one of those parents – one of the two primary sources of emotional security for those girls – is legally declared to be absolutely nothing.
If the other parent should die or become incapacitated, the legal system in Oklahoma considers her to be no different than a total stranger. She can’t order medical care for her children, or sign a consent form. She doesn’t even have any visitation rights if her children are hospitalized. The children would become wards of the state because, legally, the woman who has raised them since birth is considered nothing to them whatsoever. Doesn’t it seem just a tad bit Orwellian to call a statute that breaks up families a “pro-family” statute?
And let’s take a look at that “destroying marriage” notion. Tony Perkins, doing his best to be appointed the uber-idiot of the year, says that this demonstrates the need for the Federal Marriage Amendment to keep judges from “destroying marriage”. First of all, Mr. Perkins, this case has nothing at all to do with the Federal Marriage Amendment; if it passes (and it won’t), it will not change this situation one iota. But even if it did, I’d love to hear ol’ Tony explain why we have to rip the children away from the only parents they’ve ever known in the state of Oklahoma to avoid “destroying marriage”. I know lots and lots of people who are in marriages. Not one of those marriages is helped even a tiny little bit by Oklahoma law breaking up families where the parents are gay. Whether those two 7 year old girls have both of their parents or not will have no effect on anyone’s marriage anywhere in the world, including Tony’s.
I guess we ought to be used to this kind of cartoonish fear-mongering from the religious right by now. They don’t have a rational argument to be made for why the children of gay people, adopted or otherwise, should be taken away from their parents, so what else can they do but scream “The fags are coming to destroy your marriage” over and over again? Who needs rational arguments when you have empty catchphrases that allow their followers to think they’re thinking when in reality they’re only reacting to fear-laden propaganda?
May 26, 2006