Want an example of how gay media distorts everything through the
ideological lens of gay-left activists? Here's an excerpt from the
popular gay news site 365gay.com:
Another Bush [federal appeals court] nominee, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, also holds a radical record of anti-gay judicial activism. In 2003, Brown was the only justice on the California Supreme Court to rule against recognizing the right of gay Californians to legally adopt their children. Brown argued that allowing a gay parent to legally adopt the biological child of their partner "trivializes family bonds."
Now here are some facts. In Sharon S. v. Superior Court, a convoluted case in which the biological mother and her partner broke up during the adoption proceedings and opposed each other in court, what Brown actually argued is that second-parent adoptions ought to require "a legal relationship between the birth and second parent," or else it would "trivialize family bonds." And, in fact, California's 2001 law affords registered domestic partners the same streamlined adoption process as stepparents. What Brown was saying is that the state need not create another right to adopt for two individuals with no such legal bond.
Just to make the point, here's what California's Contra
Costa Times reported:
Justice Janice Rogers Brown wrote in her partial dissent that second-parent adoptions are not a "universal option" and legislators recognized this when they allowed registered domestic partners to have the same adoption rights as stepparents.
And here's what the lawyers on the other side were arguing, as reported by the American Bar Association Journal: "There's a demand for second-parent adoption," says Charles A. Bird, a San Diego lawyer who represents Annette F. "Some of that demand is for same-sex couples who for whatever reason don't want to register as domestic partners, some of it is for heterosexual couples who don't want to marry and some of the demand is for families where adoptions are done across generational lines." (emphasis added)
The 365gay.com site is not alone in mischaracterizing Justice Brown as a "radical" anti-gay extremist; a quick Google search showed the same spin throughout the activist community and its lapdog media.
Update: Reader Dan77 writes in the comments
area:
"either gays want marriage (or as a fallback civil unions) because we want the rights and responsibilities of legal recognition, or we don't. How in blazes can activists say gay couples should be able to co-adopt even if they don't want to accept the spousal obligations of a domestic partnership?
Once again, it's rights without responsibilities, the child's cry of "I want my cake and to eat it too!"
Update II: The influential Washington Blade
continues the distortion of Brown's dissent, comparing her with
nominee William Pryor and reporting that both
have taken positions in opposition to gay civil rights, prompting gay rights attorneys to question their ability to rule fairly in future cases. ... Brown issued a minority opinion in 2003 saying a gay person should not be allowed to adopt the biological child of his or her partner, saying providing such an adoption right "trivializes family bonds."
It would have been nice if someone had actually read
her opinion.