Louisiana Senate Won't Allow Gay Adoption

Louisiana lawmakers struck down a measure that would have offered gay and lesbian prospective parents greater family parity by allowing them to adopt. A state Senate judiciary committee voted the proposal down 3-1, reported The Times-Picayune on April 27. The vote followed party lines, noted the article, with Senate Republicans opposing adoption rights for same-sex and unmarried heterosexual families.

The bill would have provided rights for unmarried couples of any sexual orientation to adopt, and would also have allowed legal parental relationships between "second parents" and the children of their partners. Under existing state law, only one member of a same-sex relationship--or heterosexual pairing--may adopt. The article noted that opposition to the bill came mainly from religious groups such as the Catholic Church and the Baptists. The rhetoric from such groups followed the standard format, with warnings that allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt would lead to marriage equality.

State Sen. J.P. Morrell, together with bill cosponsor state Sen. Ed Murray, said that the bill would enable qualified candidates to bring needy children out of groups homes and foster care and into loving, supportive family environments, but religious opponents offered a starkly different depiction, with one cleric, The Rev. Louis Husser, declaring that, "This bill is nothing more than social experimentation using our children as guinea pigs."

Others promoted a different viewpoint. New Orleans City Councilman Arnie Fielkow, a married straight man with two adopted Ukrainian daughters, said, "We talk about family values a lot in this country. To me, family values is not putting up more barriers to adoption; it is encouraging adoption."

Anti-gay opponents also tried to smear gay families as pedophiles with unsavory interest in the children they might adopt. That suggestion prompted Morrell to point out that former Florida Republican Sen. Mark Foley, who resigned in 2006 amid a scandal over sexually explicit text messages to male teen pages, "had a 100 percent voting record with the parent group of the group pushing this bill."

Last August, the Forum for Equality Louisiana brought a proposal to the Louisiana Commission on Marriage and Family to allow adoption for same-sex couples. One of the Commission's members, Gene Mills--who also heads up the Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative Christian organization--pointed out the state's constitutional amendment barring marriage equality for gay and lesbian families, and said, "I really believe... that every child deserves not just two parents, but a mother and a father." However, unmarried people are allowed under state law to adopt.

But the issue has not been solely in the domain of Louisiana's legislators. Last February, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that both names of Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith, a San Diego male couple, should be put on the birth certificate of the infant they adopted, who was born in Louisiana.

"Even our opponents have said this is landmark case and we're pleased the court agrees that it's wrong to punish children just because the registrar doesn't like their parents," said Lambda Legal attorney Kenneth Upton.

A Louisiana assistant state attorney general, Kyle Duncan, called the ruling, which was unanimous among a three-judge panel, "a thorough rejection of the state's position." Duncan told the Associated Press that he would seek a hearing from the full court.

He said he would ask the full court to rehear the case and to stop the order for a new birth certificate until it does. Duncan said he also planned to call the Texas Solicitor General's Office, where he used to work, because he thinks it probably will affect cases there. Texas and Mississippi, where a similar ruling in a local court was not appealed, also are in the 5th Circuit.