Russia halts adoptions to Sweden over gay nuptials

TheLocal.se, October 4th, 2013

Russia has stopped all adoptions to Swedish parents due to a court decision banning international adoptions to countries which afford homosexual couples equal marriage rights.

“It’s terrible. We have 13 children in Russian orphanages today who have been offered to parents in Sweden who they have actually met,” said Jonas Friberg at the Adoptioncentrum agency in Sweden to Sveriges Television (SVT).

Representatives of the Russian authorities and the Swedish embassy met yesterday to discuss the legal situation with regard to adoptions of Russian children. Russia is seeking to sign agreements with individual countries to ensure that Russian children do not come to LGBT parents, according to the SVT report.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has confirmed that no formal negotiations have begun, but the meeting concerned an attempt to clarify what the new law means in practice.

Russian politician Vitaly Milonov meanwhile called homosexuals “perverts” in an interview with SVT broadcast on Thursday, arguing that children would be better off staying in Russian orphanages.

in Adoption / In the News / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Iowa Dept. of Public Health must do better

OneIowa.com – July 26, 2013

Only a month ago, the United States Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, granting gay and lesbian married couples more than 1,100 federal benefits and protections previously denied to them. Some people thought we were done. The struggle was over. Our families, at least in Iowa, had equal standing under the law.

Except that there is still so much work to be done. Imagine, for example, how surprised and heartbroken Joanne Abbas and Lindsey Clark were when they received their baby Thea’s birth certificate. It listed only one of the mothers as a parent. When Thea was born, these women correctly filled out the necessary paperwork and, with help from the hospital staff, both women listed their names as parents on the birth worksheet. And still, when they received the birth certificate, Lindsey’s name was missing from this important document.

Despite a previous ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court in the case Gartner v. Newton, the Iowa Department of Public Health is still refusing to immediately issue accurate birth certificates for all children born to married lesbian parents like Joanne and Lindsey. The Gartner case was decided unanimously in May of this year by the Iowa Supreme Court as part of a Lambda Legal lawsuit challenging the Iowa Department of Public Health’s refusal to issue an accurate birth certificate to MacKenzie, daughter of married same-sex couple Heather and Melissa Gartner. Iowa’s highest court ruled in favor of the Gartners, stating that the department would have to change its practice of refusing to issue accurate birth certificates listing both mothers.

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Duma bars Russian children from adoption by foreign same sex couples

RT.com – June 18, 2013

Russia’s Lower House has passed an amendment that bans the adoption of Russian children by same sex couples from abroad.

The amendment was passed on Tuesday as the State Duma approved  the second reading of the bill to protect orphans.

The amendment also forbids single people who are citizens or  permanent residents of countries that allow same sex marriage to  become adoptive parents or legal guardians of Russian children.

Russia itself does not allow same sex marriage and the country’s  authorities have passed a number of regional and federal bills  banning the promotion of gay and other “non-traditional” sex to  minors – a move considered as discriminative by a large part of  society.

Another related move was the adoption in late 2012 of the so  called ‘Dima Yakovlev Law‘ – an extensive act that  forbids, among other things, the adoption of Russian children by  US citizens or by proxy of US organizations. Russia said it was  prompted by a number of cases where US authorities refused or  failed to cooperate in the investigation of cruelty or even death  of adopted Russian children by their US adoptive parents.

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LGBT: Portuguese parliament approves right to adoption – Portugal

May 17, 2103 – Portugese-Amercian-Journal.com

Portuguese parliament has approved Friday two bills that will allow gay couples to adopt children. The bill was approved with 99 votes in favor, 94 votes against, and 9 abstentions.

The bills were supported by the ruling center-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the progressive Socialist Party (PS).

The Portuguese parliament had approved the right to same-sex marriages in 2010, but without adoption rights. The law allowed gay couples the same rights as married heterosexual couples, including taxes, inheritance and housing, but didn’t offer the right to adopt children.

Portugal is among the first 10 counties in the world to allow same-sex marriage. As recently as 1982, homosexuality was a crime in Portugal.

Today, Portugal has wide-ranging anti-discrimination laws and is one of the few countries in the world to contain a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation in its Constitution.

The first same-sex marriages in the world took place in the Netherlands on April 1, 2001. The countries that followed were Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina and Brazil.

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in Adoption / In the News / Legal / Legislation  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Iowa, USA: State Supreme Court Rules in Landmark Gay Adoption Case

The Iowa state Supreme Court ruled that the state must issue birth certificates to same-sex couples showing both spouses as parents. Lambda Legal reports:

In the decision, Justice Wiggins wrote, “By naming the nonbirthing spouse on the birth certificate of a married lesbian couple’s child, the child is ensured support from that parent and the parent establishes fundamental legal rights at the moment of birth. Therefore, the only explanation for not listing the nonbirthing lesbian spouse on the birth certificate is stereotype or prejudice.”

“The Court meant what it said in the Varnum decision: same-sex couples and their families must be treated equally under the law,” said Camilla Taylor, Marriage Project Director in Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional Office based in Chicago. “Same-sex couples and their children do not get marriage-lite. Marriage is marriage and equal is equal. We take for granted that a husband is the father of a child born to his wife through reproductive technology – regardless of whether he is his child’s genetic parent. The same marital protection for both parents’ relationships to their child holds true for same-sex couples and their children.”

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Paul Ryan Reverses Course On Gay Adoption; Says He Regrets 1999 Vote

By    On Top Magazine Staff            Published:    May 01, 2013

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on Monday reversed course on gay adoption, saying that he regrets a 1999 vote.

During a Wisconsin town hall, Ryan was asked to explain his long record of voting against gay rights.  Ryan rates a zero percent by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for not co-sponsoring any of the 11 gay rights-related bills currently before Congress, including the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and Uniting American Families Act (UAFA).

Ryan said he would undo a 1999 vote against adoption for gay and lesbian couples in the District of Columbia.

“Adoption, I’d vote differently these days. That was I think a vote I took in my first term, 1999 or 2000. I do believe that if there are children who are orphans who do not have a loving person or couple … I think if a person wants to love and raise a child they ought to be able to do that. Period. I would vote that way,” he said.

 

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France’s Senate approves adoption for gay couples

GayStarNews.com – April 11, 2013 by Joe Morgan

The French Senate has approved adoption for same-sex couples.

On the evening of 10 April, the second article of the ‘Marriage for All’ bill was adopted by the upper level of French parliament.

The vote came just one day after the Senate approved Article 1, the provision allowing gay couples to marry.

The Senate must now complete a review of the legislation in its entirety, although passage of both articles almost guarantees gay couples will soon be able to marry and adopt in France.

Once approved, the bill will go back to the National Assembly in late May for final approval. It will then go to the French President François Hollande to sign into law.

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Top Anti-Gay Attorney Insults Chief Justice Roberts And Justice Thomas’ Decisions To Adopt Children

ThinkProgress.org, By Ian Millhiser on Mar 14, 2013

When President Bush announced his decision to nominate future-Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court, his wife Jane stood nearby holding the hands of two beautiful children — Jack and Josie Roberts. Both of these children were born in Ireland, and later adopted by the future Chief Justice and his wife. Justice Clarence Thomas also has an adopted son, his grandnephew Mark Martin, Jr., who Thomas adopted when Martin was six.

So it is a bit hard to understand why a top anti-gay advocate decided to insult adoptive parents in general — and Chief Justice Roberts in particular — as the justices are preparing to hear two cases that will decide whether same-sex couples will enjoy the same right to marry as all other Americans. According to John Eastman, a law professor and chair of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, Roberts and Thomas’ adopted children are only growing up in the “second-best” environment:

The justices also are not immune to considering how they might be affected by the course one side or the other is advocating in a dispute before them. . . . [Johns Hopkins Sociology Professor Andrew] Cherlin, who does not follow the high court especially closely, wondered whether the gay marriage cases might take on a similar dynamic. “If justices consider their own family lives in these cases, it may change the way they rule,” he said.

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New Pope: Francis believes gay adoption is child abuse

Argentina’s Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen by the conclave of cardinals as the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church
| By Joe Morgan – GayStarNews.com

Pope Francis was elected as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church today (13 March).

Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, was chosen by the conclave of 115 cardinals as a successor to Benedict XVI.

Tens of thousands of faithful Catholics broke into cheers as the white smoke indicated the new pontiff had obtained the required two thirds majority, which happened in the fifth round of voting over two days.

Francis is still a conservative choice, but has taught the ‘importance of respecting gay individuals’.

However he strongly opposed same-sex marriage legislation introduced in 2010 by the Argentine government, calling it a ‘destructive attack on God’s plan’.

In a letter to the monasteries of Buenos Aires, he wrote: ‘Let’s not be naive, we’re not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God.

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We Found Our Son in the Subway

New York Times, by Paul Mercurio, February 28, 2013

The story of how Danny and I were married last July in a Manhattan courtroom, with our son, Kevin, beside us, began 12 years earlier, in a dark, damp subway station.

Danny called me that day, frantic. “I found a baby!” he shouted. “I called 911, but I don’t think they believed me. No one’s coming. I don’t want to leave the baby alone. Get down here and flag down a police car or something.” By nature Danny is a remarkably calm person, so when I felt his heart pounding through the phone line, I knew I had to run.

When I got to the A/C/E/ subway exit on Eighth Avenue, Danny was still there, waiting for help to arrive. The baby, who had been left on the ground in a corner behind the turnstiles, was light-brown skinned and quiet, probably about a day old, wrapped in an oversize black sweatshirt.

In the following weeks, after family court had taken custody of “Baby ACE,” as he was nicknamed, Danny told the story over and over again, first to every local TV news station, then to family members, friends, co-workers and acquaintances. The story spread like an urban myth: You’re never going to believe what my friend’s cousin’s co-worker found in the subway. What neither of us knew, or could have predicted, was that Danny had not just saved an abandoned infant; he had found our son.

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in Adoption / Family Stories / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments