![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/22/Fla-courts-weigh-same-sex-adoption-issues/UPI-76041245680305/
This is one reason among many why gay marriage is not a state's rights issue. There are just too many complications between the states when each state gets to make up its own rules about civil rights.
In this case, both women in a lesbian couple had one baby each, and then adopted each others' babies under the same-sex adoption laws in Washington state.
Now, one of the women lives in Florida and is trying to get married to a man and is refusing her ex-partner parental rights to her child (that is, the adopted child of the Washington lesbian but the natural child of the Florida former-lesbian) under Florida's denial of adoption rights for same-sex couples, on the grounds that their adoption isn't legal in Florida so she isn't eligible for parental rights.
This case is going to trial and will severely test Florda's idiotic same-sex adoption ban. It's stupid and it's cruel. If a heterosexual man tried to deny his ex-wife rights to the child she raised (but didn't birth) through some loophole that says their multi-year "marriage" doesn't count in the region he happened to move to (but was legal where it took place), you can bet everyone would be screaming about how she was a true "mother" for all her years of service and devotion to the child regardless of blood and how could he take the child away from a caring woman? I know I get pretty pissed whenever someone suggests that a non-biological relationship is somehow less important or less worthy than a biological one. I dare anyone to tell me to my face that my mother, who raised me from 15 days old, didn't *really* love me as much as she would have loved a "real" daughter, with all her years of sacrifice and saving and sleepless nights of worry and taking me to the doctor and watching me take my first steps ... I could go on, but I won't.
Besides the fact that it's just plain unethical and discriminatory, when you let every state make up a different rule about personal rights, you waste taxpayer dollars whenever each state tries to figure out how to handle cases that were legal somewhere else but the people now live in a new state. If Florida didn't have the stupid ban, this case would be handled by existing parental custody laws, by precedent and by a simplified process that was designed for this very circumstance.
This was amply demonstrated in the article about transgender spouses in a recent post. If a man and a woman get married, then the man becomes a woman and is legally allowed to change his gender in his state, then he will be part of a legal same-sex marriage in a state that does not allow same-sex marriage. If he gets divorced, he will now be only legally allowed to marry another man, but in a state that doesn't recognize sex changes, "she" will be only legally allowed to marry another woman.
As it says: "a lawyer for the transgendered plaintiff in the Littleton case noted the absurdity of the country’s gender laws as they pertain to marriage: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton [male-to-female whose male husband died], while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”
Utterly ridiculous. Legal contracts require that the signees be of legal age and of sound mind to give informed consent. That's it and that's all it should be. It makes absolutely no sense to include discriminatory clauses onto marriage contracts and it causes all sorts of legal confusions that are totally unneccessary, wasteful, and open up the legal system to loopholes and abuses.
This is one reason among many why gay marriage is not a state's rights issue. There are just too many complications between the states when each state gets to make up its own rules about civil rights.
In this case, both women in a lesbian couple had one baby each, and then adopted each others' babies under the same-sex adoption laws in Washington state.
Now, one of the women lives in Florida and is trying to get married to a man and is refusing her ex-partner parental rights to her child (that is, the adopted child of the Washington lesbian but the natural child of the Florida former-lesbian) under Florida's denial of adoption rights for same-sex couples, on the grounds that their adoption isn't legal in Florida so she isn't eligible for parental rights.
This case is going to trial and will severely test Florda's idiotic same-sex adoption ban. It's stupid and it's cruel. If a heterosexual man tried to deny his ex-wife rights to the child she raised (but didn't birth) through some loophole that says their multi-year "marriage" doesn't count in the region he happened to move to (but was legal where it took place), you can bet everyone would be screaming about how she was a true "mother" for all her years of service and devotion to the child regardless of blood and how could he take the child away from a caring woman? I know I get pretty pissed whenever someone suggests that a non-biological relationship is somehow less important or less worthy than a biological one. I dare anyone to tell me to my face that my mother, who raised me from 15 days old, didn't *really* love me as much as she would have loved a "real" daughter, with all her years of sacrifice and saving and sleepless nights of worry and taking me to the doctor and watching me take my first steps ... I could go on, but I won't.
Besides the fact that it's just plain unethical and discriminatory, when you let every state make up a different rule about personal rights, you waste taxpayer dollars whenever each state tries to figure out how to handle cases that were legal somewhere else but the people now live in a new state. If Florida didn't have the stupid ban, this case would be handled by existing parental custody laws, by precedent and by a simplified process that was designed for this very circumstance.
This was amply demonstrated in the article about transgender spouses in a recent post. If a man and a woman get married, then the man becomes a woman and is legally allowed to change his gender in his state, then he will be part of a legal same-sex marriage in a state that does not allow same-sex marriage. If he gets divorced, he will now be only legally allowed to marry another man, but in a state that doesn't recognize sex changes, "she" will be only legally allowed to marry another woman.
As it says: "a lawyer for the transgendered plaintiff in the Littleton case noted the absurdity of the country’s gender laws as they pertain to marriage: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton [male-to-female whose male husband died], while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”
Utterly ridiculous. Legal contracts require that the signees be of legal age and of sound mind to give informed consent. That's it and that's all it should be. It makes absolutely no sense to include discriminatory clauses onto marriage contracts and it causes all sorts of legal confusions that are totally unneccessary, wasteful, and open up the legal system to loopholes and abuses.
