Alabama appeals court denies Mobile woman right to adopt partner's son

[___closetome]

Cari Searcy considers herself the parent of 6-year-old Khaya in every important way, but an Alabama appeals court ruled today that legally, she is not

Comments

[evilegg]

If I'm reading the wiki chart correctly, AL enjoys a spot in the top five states with the highest rate of divorce.
But it's sacred, you know.

[romp]

Ugh.

All about me: I was lucky we lived in a liberal city so I was able to adopt at our 2nd child's birth. I wasn't able to adopt the child I parented since he was a toddler though because a child can't have 3 parents and his father wasn't going to relinquish his rights. Yet I'm seen as the parent of both our kids in Canada without any paperwork because we're married and you're automatically the parent of your spouse's children here.

Which makes me think all this doesn't have to be as hard as the US makes it. :/

[aviv_b]

The problem is letting each state decide who can be married and also the lack of reciprocity for gay marriages conducted in other states.

Consider interracial marriage. It wasn't until 1967 that the Supreme Court struck down state laws banning interracial marriage. (Some states left their laws unchanged as a 'symbolic' way of saying they disagreed with this decision).

(From RationalWiki)
"In November 2000, Alabama became the last state to overturn a law banning interracial marriage. Yet as the election revealed-40 percent of Alabamans voted to keep the ban -apparently many Alabamans still see the necessity for a law that prohibits blacks and whites from mixing blood."

Alabama had to be dragged kicking and screaming into integrating their schools at every level, and to cease enforcing anti-miscegenation laws. It will take a Supreme Court ruling to drag them into the 21st Century and stop banning gay marriage.

[romp]

Thanks for that info--I knew of that in only a vague way. I've heard that Canada is hindered by the fact that it's actually a collection of provinces and more power rests with them than the federal government. Seems to be a version of "states rights" without the loaded rhetoric but when it came to same-sex marriage, the provinces were different for a few years and then the issue was dealt with nationally.

The US seems to have some symbolism going with state rights over federal, yeah? I guess it's a deep strain of anti-gov't in the culture. Yet they're not anarchists. The right (Repubs and many libertarians IME) seem to idealize fiefdoms and defendable compounds. That scenario should make any woman's blood run cold...
/wildlyofftopic

[carmy_w]

WRT your second paragraph: yes, the US does have a thing going with states' rights v. federal rights. The entire civil war was fought over the federal government's right to overrule the state's laws. It just happened that the specific law involved was slavery, so that was the lynchpin of the South's argument-that the Fed couldn't overrule a state's sovereign power.

So, anytime the states don't like it when they get dragged kicking and screaming into the present, instead of malingering in the dead past, they pull the same argument out once again.

And I agree with your final two sentences also; it makes all this mess much more scary!

[whitewatergirl]

I'm not a parent, so I'm confused about something - do you HAVE to be married to adopt a child? Can the court really deny you the right to do so? Maybe these are stupid questions, but it seems if she'd been the child's aunt, then she could adopt him easily, no?

[carmy_w]

It's an extreme knee-jerk reaction to the same-sex parents. I would venture to guess that even if they were not married, if the couple in question were a man/woman pair, the adoption would have been allowed, and the state law be damned.

[silver_apples]

Single people can adopt, although the rules might vary from state to state or agency to agency

[sashafarce]

Every state's laws are different - here in Alabama, you must adopt as a single parent or as a married couple. Second parent or stepparent adoptions can only be done by the existing parent's legal spouse. Since gay marriage is illegal here, then the ruling is technically correct. Fuckers.

I do however know that other judges here have granted second-parent adoption to gay couples on a case-by-case. There was a big public interest article about it a year or two ago. One is really at the mercy of the judicial system at the moment.

[caterfree10]

FULL FAITH AND TRUST CLAUSE, MOTHERFUCKERS, HAVE YOU HEARD OF IT?

Oh right, fucking DOMA. *sighs hugely*