Case to Consider Fitness of Lesbian Aunt in Adoption Matter
by Ed Thomas
October 12, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A pro-family First Amendment law firm is assisting in a case in Texas involving opposition to the attempted adoption of two siblings, ages seven years and five months, by an aunt who lives in a lesbian lifestyle.
According to an attorney for the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy (AFA Law Center), the issues in question in the Lufkin County case styled "In the Interest of Taylor Emory Menefee," include whether Texas law distinguishes any difference between the sexual orientations of potential adoptive parents. Steve Crampton, chief counsel for the Law Center, says the aunt lives with a same-sex partner in New Mexico, and has also been diagnosed with a "major depressive disorder." Crampton says those facts should merit some questions from the state of Texas about fitness for adoption.
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Steve Crampton |
"Regardless of your view on same-sex sexual practices, this is not what would be held up as an ideal home within which to place these two children, one of whom is an infant," says the attorney. It is unfortunate, he adds, that the issue of sexual orientation as a prohibition to adoption is one that is increasingly being done away with my modern courts -- which is why the attorney ad litem in the case has asked the Law Center to help."We're hopeful that we can add some expertise and assistance to at least raise that as a real issue rather than simply to let it go, which seems to be the preference of Social Services these days," says Crampton. The attorney sees his firm's involvement as important for the children.
"We are, if not already there, rapidly approaching the time when the lesbian activities of the would-be adoptive parent not only is discounted by the court, but almost looked at as some sort of affirmative virtue," he explains, saying that because of that "they may receive some preferential treatment in the adoption context here."
Crampton adds that the aunt is only a relative my adoption and was discharged from the military for her sexual orientation.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
