Need further proof the world's going to hell in a hand basket? This piece is from the
Dallas Voice, "The Community Newspaper for Gay & Lesbian Dallas."
"State Rep. Thad Balkman, the instigator of the measure, claimed — apparently in error — that the law would prevent Oklahoma children from being adopted by gay couples from out of state, and opined that “children are better off with two parents — a mother and a father, not two mothers or two fathers.”
By Ann Rostow
News Analyst
The U.S Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has struck down one of the most extraordinary anti-gay laws in the nation — Oklahoma’s ban on recognizing legal gay adoptive parents from out of state.
Passed in 2004, the law was unique in the country and breathtaking in its scope. A lower federal court ruled the law unconstitutional last year, and last Friday, Aug. 3, the three-judge federal appellate panel put the final nail in its coffin, handing the GLBT legal community a nice precedent in the process.
Critics of the law say it’s hard to believe that an elected group of lawmakers, even in the reddest state, could conceive of passing this kind of legislation in the first place. Imagine adopting a couple of children at birth, moving to Oklahoma years later, and discovering that you are no longer legally related to your teenage son or daughter, they say.
How did it happen? It happened in a kind of gay panic, brought on by the plight of two gay fathers in 2003.
Read more...Labels: OK Legislature, Thad Balkman
Posted at 8/15/2007 05:09:00 PM
