Scott Maxwell at the Orlando Sentinel has an extraordinary story about the lengths that social conservatives and anti-gay advocates will go to block the adoption of children by gay couples. Vanessa Alenier and her partner, Melanie Leon, are affluent and loving parents who were awarded custody of a child who was in their foster care in Florida. One problem for the Florida Family Policy Council, it appears, is that they are also attractive, so (on the left) is the picture the council posted with their calls for opposition to the adoption while (on the right) is the actual couple.
For the judge, the adoption should have been an easy decision. The investigators found that the one-year-old boy left in their care “happy and thriving.” The judge made the mistake it appears of focusing on the child’s well-being as opposed to the identity of the parents. The Family Council denounced the decision as a case of “[a]rrogant judicial activism” and has been campaigning against the couple.
These “family advocates” oppose giving a foster child a loving home and caring parents. It is better it seems to throw him back into the foster care system to be bounced from home to home. This case is proof that these are not family values (since they are opposing the creation of a loving family) but political values.
For the full story, click here.
Further proof that the so-called ‘family values’ crowd couldn’t care less about children or families.
One must appreciate the irony in a group using, shall we say, “unfortunate looking” as a propaganda weapon against formation of a family that results in not only failure at bar but as serves to illustrate said group’s own true ugliness. Ugly of the kind which is to the bone or so I am told. And I don’t mean “unfortunate looking”. True ugly comes in pretty wrappers often as not.
A loving family and a happy healthy child are as far from ugly as it gets.
Opposing that quality of domestic situation – no matter the particulars of composition – is the antithesis of civilized.
Beauty is skin deep and Ugly is to the bone.
I’d not give much for a man’s (womans) religion whose dog is not the very better for it.
I don’t remember the author.
Are not Adoptions, Neglect Abuse and other types of cases like these closed to the public?
So the question that I have is other than the person who had the child or the childs father. How did they become aware of the status of this case. Was grandmother upset?
It is my understanding that the order of placement goes as this. 1) Parents 2) Relative Placement 3)Foster Care.
So if the parents are deemed unfit then the next order of business is the extended family. I guess they did not meet the burden either.
Personally, I am hoping for a hell for these conservative miscreants. To deny a child a happy productive and life after banishment from a likely Christian home (statistically speaking) out of some bigoted notion of what a real “family” is supposed to be, seems more than a venial sin to me. Maybe Jerry Falwell can book reservations for them, since, for him, it’s a local call.
The couple on the left needs to call up Reille Hunter’s lawyer and see if they can get some kind of an injunction.
Continuing my rant … we all know that physical beauty directly correlates with parenting skills. Heck, even intelligence is dependent on the height of ones cheekbones and the svelteness of ones figure. As exhibit A, I offer this poor dunder-headed soul, who obviously has a galaxy size problem in the appearance department. Oh, his poor embarrassed relativity back home:
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/z_Projects_in_progress/050418_Einstein/050405_einstein_tongue.widec.jpg
I am seeking royalties for the use of my late great uncles likeness. lol. I am only kidding.
I hadn’t realized the importance that physical beauty had on parenting skills. I certainly hope that this new found requirement for parenting leads to mass steralization of the
” unfortunate looking ” in society. We certainly wouldn’t want them breeding together!!! Just think of all the furture ” unfortunate looking ” people that would turn out!! It is far better to have the beautiful people, like Brittney Spears for example, raising our future!
Thank-you Florida Family Policy Council for shedding light on this area. Without your enlightening words on the subject the rest of us would have gone through life believing that……
” A loving family and a happy healthy child are as far from ugly as it gets ” Buddah is laughing Feb 6 2010 @ 8:03 am.
Hohoho hahaha they used that picture?! That picture’s been zooming around the internet for quite some time.
http://www.manofest.com/Content/15-horrifying-couples-that-shouldnt-procreate.html
Does anybody actually even know who those poor people are, or where the picture came from? Nice one on Florida Family Policy Council for throwing them under the bus. Idiots.
What do you expect to hear and see from the far religious right? Especially in Florida! These so-called Christians will go to any lengths to spread their nonsense. The truth is not an impediment to these church going miscreants. What happened to judging a person “by the content of their character”?
It is Florida after all.
AY–
“It is Florida after all.”
Florida plays second fiddle only to Texas!
Elaine M.,
Touche’ it is kind of hard to beat stupid isn’t. But then again, there are many ways to spell stupid.
AY–
I may have posted the following before–but this “stoopid” Texas story bears repeating:
From Think Progress (1/26/2010)
Right-wing Texas Education Board accidentally bans popular children’s book author.
Last week, ThinkProgress reported on the Texas Board of Education’s push to change the state’s social studies curriculum to marginalize progressives. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reveals that the latest to be nixed is actually popular children’s author Bill Martin Jr.:
In its haste to sort out the state’s social studies curriculum standards this month, the State Board of Education tossed children’s author Martin, who died in 2004, from a proposal for the third-grade section. Board member Pat Hardy, R-Weatherford, who made the motion, cited books he had written for adults that contain “very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system.”
Trouble is, the Bill Martin Jr. who wrote the Brown Bear series never wrote anything political, unless you count a book that taught kids how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, his friends said. The book on Marxism was written by Bill Martin, a philosophy professor at DePaul University in Chicago.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/26/brown-bear-martin/
***************
More on the story from dallasnews.com (1/25/2010)
Name confusion gets kid’s author banned from Texas curriculum
Traci Shurley, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Excerpt:
Bill Martin Jr.’s name would have been included on a list with author Laura Ingalls Wilder and artist Carmen Lomas Garza as examples of individuals who would be studied for their cultural contributions.
Hardy said she was trusting the research of another board member, Terri Leo, R-Spring, when she made her motion and comments about Martin’s writing. Leo had sent her an e-mail alerting her to Bill Martin Jr.’s listing on the Borders.com Web site as the author of Ethical Marxism. Leo’s note also said she hadn’t read the book.
“She said that that was what he wrote, and I said: ‘ … It’s a good enough reason for me to get rid of someone,’ “said Hardy, who has complained vehemently about the volume of names being added to the curriculum standards.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-books_25tex.ART.State.Edition1.4ba2046.html
Texas has the worst reputation, but I have not heard much controversy over adoption by gay couples yet.
AY–
Here’s a video of the “Marxist” Bill Martin Jr. singing his anti-capitalist children’s book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”
I bet that teachers looking at me…..Thanks.
.
Good morning swartmore mom. How is your side of the state today? Its colder than a well diggers ass here. As a matter of fact I heard construction sounds and looked out side, it appears that somebody is getting some water work done. Too damn cold at 40 here. The lettuce did not freeze though.
It is going to be 50 degrees and sunny. That’s not cold. My daughter is getting 2 feet of snow today. The cold weather has not yet convinced her to go to Austin to law school.
I just received pictures of the snow from her blackberry. Wow
$0 degrees and 50 degrees??? Here in Northern Illinois and about 1 1/2 hour northwest of Chicago, we have a name for those kind of temperatures. We call it Spring!
I must be getting old. That should read 40 degrees,not $0!
You know how these Texas people are; they put their mink coats on when it is 50.
rafflaw,
We do to. It is generally called winter here in these neck of the woods. I have part of the garden already planted. I have had to mow twice. Actually once, the second time was just to get the winter cover off. I know you call it snow, we call it dead grass.
I understand. However the daffodils are sprouting and 2 actually have buds. Yes, spring is soon approaching…..
Mink, mink, mink. 40 caret diamonds rings. mink, mink, mink. I wonder if hector will get the pool clean out today before noon. I just hate it when it has not been cleaned properly before I get into it. mink, mink, mink.
rafflaw,
I hate it too when the Federal Reserve Chairman gets those confused as well. lol
The cedar wax wings are here. Spring usually comes shortly after they arrive but it is colder than usual and will be all week. I don’t want to get bdaman going.
I’m here
Been watchin yall all mornin, remember if I don’t see you thru the week, I see you thru Windows.
bdaman,
He will morph into duh or who ever calls…..
AY what happened to your new found respect. I guess you thru that out the window.
threw
No still like you, so far. Today, I might even give you a break of that kit kat bar.
So did you catch up on the faith thread?
Whew WTF was that. Do you know I had nightmares last night and woke up seeing green.
Swarthmore mom:
that is one bird I would like to see. I don’t think we have them here in Virginia. I first remember seeing them in the Peterson Guide to North American Birds and have wanted to see one ever since.
Having actually worked with Foster Care for Child Welfare and for a Foster Care Agency after my retirement, I can categorically state that the need of children in the system is for family’s to adopt and love them. Forgetting the effectiveness of the system itself, which is another can of worms, children in FC generally feel abandoned and unwanted. Any faith based group that would delay an adoption process, evinces no caring for the child and an overweening self righteousness that really speaks of egotism. Like the anti-abortion movement their empathy is reserved for the fetus, not the baby and they demonstate their religious hypocrisy by this.
Mike S.–
I agree with you!
**********
My daughter is a licensed social worker. She works with children for whom life is one heartbreak after another. Their lives are a series of traumatic events. If only our society was willing to use more of its resources for programs that could help these children when they are young, maybe many more would lead productive and happy lives when they became adults.
“Like the anti-abortion movement their empathy is reserved for the fetus, not the baby”.
I think its a cart before the horse thing. Unless you would consider the life of that baby to be a fate worse than death. In some cases that might be true.
What do you think about this story?
Woman waiting for procedure gives birth; baby placed in bag, thrown out.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29037216/
Maybe it would be better for ugly people to adopt and nurture children.
Where in the constitution does it state that same sex parents cannot lleagaly adopt a child? Exaclty, no where. As Americans, it is our duty to know our rights. This whole situation exists due to those who are unwilling to agree with same sex relationships. Yet obviously this is just thier opinion; it has nothing to do with being against the law. There is such a thing as seperation between church and state, remember?
It took well over 200 years for society to accept blacks, women, and the handicapped as equels and to treat them as human beings. Why is it so difficult for society to treat gays with the same respect? Help Vanessa Alenier and Melanie Leon
*The people should not be afraid of their government, but a government afraid of its people.*
‘Family values’ = unconstitutional discrimination = treason
Now, JT, when are you finally sueing Pat Robertson and the like-minded for this?
Actually, the “unfortunate-looking” couple doesn’t really look all that bad. Except for the haircut, the blonde is a dead ringer for a woman who was a pillar of the church where I grew up, and a nice woman she was too. The brunette would have been 100% improved by even a little smile, but perhaps she just hates to have her photo taken.
I have a clear image, however, of the “family values” types who perpetrated this shameful scam, and let me tell ya, THEY ain’t pretty. At least not on the inside.
It’s not that the less attractive couple would be any less deserving of the right to adopt a child. It’s that the Florida Family Policy Council don’t believe in the strength of their nefarious agenda if it is countered with an image of an attractive couple. What losers.
So… these “family values” far-right nutjobs would rather the child stay bouncing from house to house than stay with a lesbian couple that loves each other and their child?
If you want to call it a “family value,” at least give it characteristics that ANYBODY would agree is from a loving family. If the child is happy and healthy, and the parents are happy and healthy, and the parents love their child, who cares what their sexual orientation is?
There’s nothing more offensive than idiots who try and “protect” children from whom they deem are monstrous, evil, wicked, Satan-derived, beautiful lesbian SINNERS. It’s absolute insanity. Far-left nutjobs just try to promise too much but can’t deliver; far-right nutjobs try and control every single family that they just don’t happen to be a part of, and call it “moral”. Idiots.
Can you please understand the marriage wars are far from over. But the new information proves that the mocked smooth hill is indeed a very smooth dating sites reality. Since the homosexual community has enlisted the gay church as it lackeys to sanctify what God has called abominable.
http://onlinegaydating.blogspot.com/2010/02/do-not-give-respected-to-gay-couple.html
Hi I know how we date and chat online because I visited one online dating site which gives great service and I suppose now it is going to give gold membership also.
I got to know pretty good things on this site. I have found same kind a site relevant to the topic.. Please, go through… http://www.adultsinglesdating.co.uk/ and http://www.datingpersonalsads.co.uk
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….I like that discussion about weather. Living in Southern California desert, summers are just about always 100+. We were hitting 80 by March, and more often than not, this lasts well into October (or further; we’ve had a few 80+ days in December. And in spring and fall, temperatures can fluctuate nearly 50 degrees in the same day (it’s really inconvenient when it comes to dressing). Having said that, 30-50 degree weather is considered winter here. And to me, this is pretty damn cold, but since I have adapted to withstand intense heat of our summers, 50 degrees calls for a warm jacket or two.