It would be difficult to find a more clear-cut example of how "anti-family" many anti-gay conservatives truly are than the decision last week by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding Florida's blanket ban on adoptions by gays. The Miami Herald described one of the plaintiffs, Doug Houghton, who is the foster parent of an 11 year old. ''I wish the judges could spend a weekend at our home,'' he said last week. "Our lives are full, happy, interesting and healthy. 'I've raised this boy for eight years. He calls me 'Daddy.' ''
But anti-gay activists -- on the bench and off -- would deny this child the necessary stability that comes with legal adoption. Their animus toward gays trumps any concern for parentless children. And they have no shame about it.
It's likely this case will find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will then decide whether to extend the jurisprudence it's established with its Lawrence and Romer rulings that the states cannot discriminate against gay people merely on the basis of popular prejudice.
Bloody Kansas.
Another sickening decision, this time from the Kansas Court of
Appeals,
upheld the
conviction of Matthew Limon, who was sentenced to more than
17 years in prison for having consensual sex when
he was 18 with a 14-year-old boy. Had Limon's partner been a
14-year-old girl, under the state's "Romeo and Juliet" law he would
have been sentenced at most to one year and three months.
The only explanation for the differing sentences is the state's
desire to stigmatize gays. As a dissenting judge wrote: "This
blatantly discriminatory sentencing provision does not live up to
American standards of equal justice." Clearly.
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