Chalk it up to turning the other cheek, or perhaps a blind eye, but the superintendent of parochial schools in Hingham, MA says she’ll help the 3rd grader who who was banned from attending St. Paul Elementary School because of having lesbian parents find another Catholic school to attend.

The Associated Press reports that superintendent Mary Grassa O’Neill said in a statement discordant with the school’s actions, “We believe that every parent who wishes to send their child to a Catholic school should have the opportunity to pursue that dream.”  That dream?  Of sending their child to Catholic school?  People dream about sending their kids to Harvard, sure.  But sending your kid to Catholic school shouldn’t be something you have to dream about.  It should be an easily achieved reality.  The Church finally accepting homosexuality as natural and not a disease or sin – now that’s a dream.

The family at the heart of the controversy has remained anonymous, but the parent O’Neill spoke with said “she was uncertain she would enroll her son in another Catholic school because she needed to learn more about their educational programs.”  It seems odd to me that a parent wouldn’t understand religious education is a major component of attending Catholic school, a point O’Neill drove home.  She said, “The schools expect parents to understand that the teachings of the Church are an important component of the curriculum and are part of the students’ educational experience,” but also stressed that the Boston Archdiocese “doesn’t bar children of same-sex parents from attending Catholic schools, and that it will develop a policy in the coming weeks to make that clear.”

The Boston Globe reports that “the Family Equality Council, a rights group for gay and lesbian families, called the exclusion of the student indefensible.”  Executive director Jennifer Chrisler said Thursday, “If the parents of the child want their son’s admission reinstated, the school should welcome him back immediately.”  Right.  It doesn’t make sense that the Boston Archdiocese has the autonomy to suggest they wouldn’t deny the child of gay people access to education, yet the individual schools have the same freedom to reject a student with gay parents.  If the Archdiocese is willing to allow the boy to attend a Catholic school, why not St. Paul’s? Continue reading »

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Gay marriage may not be legal in New York State, but one lesbian mom got a great Mother’s Day gift this week when the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that she is the legal parent of her 6-year-old son, “based on a Vermont civil union that she and her former partner entered into prior to his birth.”

The Drama

You see, Debra H. and Janice R. were just two crazy kids in love back in 2003, and they ran off to Vermont to get hitched.  Or civil-unioned, “which at that time was the most legally significant relationship available to same-sex couples under U.S. law,” according to Lambda Legal, a nationwide organization fighting for the rights of GLBT people, and the representatives of the plaintiff.  Janice R. got preggers using a sperm donor, and the happy couple met with an adoption lawyer before their son was born to arrange for Debra H. to have full parental rights.  Lambda Legal stresses that, “Debra was by Janice’s side throughout labor and delivery and cut their son’s umbilical cord; her last name was included in their son’s name on his birth certificate.”  After their son’s birth, Janice R. was all, “We don’t need The Man to sanction your parentage.  It’s all good, baby, I love you.”  But then Janice R. dumped Debra H. in 2006 and was like, “That’s my kid, bish!”  Debra H. was like, “Say what, hooker?!”  And then they went to court. Continue reading »

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One thing that opponents of same-sex marriage overlook is the fact that many, many gay couples are already raising families. And the children of those families are increasingly speaking up for their parents — and themselves.

One is Kasey Nicholson-McFadden, a blond-haired 10-year-old boy who looks like he just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad. Continue reading »

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A West Virginia couple who had been fostering their 19-month old daughter since she was a few weeks old were recently allowed to keep her and proceed with adopting her, after an attempt to remove her from their home.

The little girl’s birth mother lost her parental rights after failing to improve her situation and the child was released for adoption.  In spite of the fact that she had been in her foster home longer than her six foster siblings, and in spite of her foster mother’s expressed interest in permanently adopting her, Baby Girl C. was ordered removed and placed in a new home until she could be adopted by someone other than the parents who had fostered her since birth.  The foster parents, supported by the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources won an appeal to the West Virginia supreme court, and retained custody of the girl whom they intend to adopt.

How could the child’s guardian ad litem and the initial ruling judge have come to a conclusion so clearly not in the best interest of a child?  The foster parents were a lesbian couple.  The child was ordered to be placed in a “traditional home with a mother and father” though state law provided for no such move on the part of a healthy, well cared-for child.

While West Virginia does not allow same-sex couples to adopt children together, the state does allow singles to adopt.  One of the foster moms has already adopted a child through the foster system and both women have gone on to foster seven children together with the full endorsement of the state.  In its ruling on the case, the West Virginia supreme court blasted the earlier decision:

“Despite the number of times that this court has stated the best interest of the child is the polar star upon which decisions involving children are to be based, DHHR did not even consider whether the individual needs of B.G.C. would be best served by removing her from petitioners’ care…”

And though part of the reasoning for the removal was also supposedly that the home had reached its legal limit of children, many of the children in the home had come more recently than Baby Girl C, and were far less bonded with the foster parents.  The supreme court also called this part of the decision a violation of the best interest standard:

“The agency simply turned a blind eye to the fact that B.G.C. had been placed in the foster home a number of months before some of the other children then in the home, and ignored any consideration of the impact relocation would have on B.G.C.‘s emotional, physical and mental development.”

If you have a toddler, you can imagine how tearing that child from your own care and placing her/him in the care of another family might effect “emotional, physical and mental development” I’m sure.  Would your toddler happily embrace “new parents” however more socially acceptable than you (perhaps wealthier, living in a nicer house, with a stay-at-home mom or some other “better” social status according to mainstream notions of better)?  I thought not.  Mine neither.

It’s time for adults to stop using children as hammers to pound their own ideologies and start really basing these kinds of decisions on the best interests of children.

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