The Utah Supreme Court today put a temporary hold on a trial judge's orders to return a little girl to her soldier father after she was given up for adoption without his consent two years ago.
And what makes this all worse is that adopting a child of color is seen as a status symbol for the... kind of people who live in Utah Valley and Utah Valley is pretty much all white. This is a white family that stole a Black baby.
The Utah Valley area is ridiculously white, LDS, and conservative. It's a fake and toxic culture where appearance is the upmost concern. For these white families to adopt a child of color is just a way to show off how charitable they are, brown kids are like an accessory. The Freis even changed this baby's name like she's a fucking dog they got at the pound not a human being. Her name is Teleah, not Leah.
White people need to keep their fucking hands off our children. I'm sick of seeing stories like this and Heart of Jesus do I hate living in Utah. At least I'm in Salt Lake Valley, not Utah Valley.
This is so terrible and yet from what I've read not actually that unique. Adoption agencies seem to commonly have no problem arranging adoptions for babies despite a father who does not consent and wants to raise the child, because they are making money off the adoption
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What I dont understand is the selfishness of the adoptive family. They have FIVE other children. FIVE. I dont have an issue if you want a big family, that's fine but seriously why do they neeeeeed one more and if they want another so badly there are thousands in the system to adopt, let the father have his daughter and if you must have six children there are many out there wanting homes.
I sort of agree, but not entirely. Adopting the child while knowing the father had not agreed to it was selfish. But by this point, they've bonded to the child, and letting go would be hard (I'm assuming they genuinely love and care for the children). I would have far more sympathy for their side if they had not known the father hadn't agreed. It's pretty clear that they never cared about how he felt about this. The article is not clear on when they contacted him to ask him to give up custody, but I suspect it was either after he found out where his daughter was, or someone tipped them off that he was looking. This way they could say "we tried to be reasonable and do the legal and right thing, and he refused".
This is a kind of sloppy explanation, but to Mormons everyone exists before birth as a spirit child made from the union of a divine god and goddess. The best possible outcome is for these children to be born into Mormon families. Bigger families mean more of these spirit children will be raised with the correct religious views. Adoption of "gentile" (non-Mormon) babies gives them the best chance of getting to the highest level of afterlife. They likely believe that returning Teleah to her father endangers her soul in the afterlife.
IMO there are some instances in which the mother -or custodial parent- has the right to give a child up for adoption after birth, in rape, if the other parent hasn't been around and has essentially abandoned the child, but this doesn't seem to be the issue in this scenario. To be honest, I'm a little surprised/confused as to how the mother was able to give the baby up for adoption if she was still married to the child's father? Isn't a woman's husband by default listed as a child's father, and thus automatically given parental rights? If so, how could she legally adopt out the child without the father having signed away his parental rights? This sounds like kidnapping through an adoption agency to me.
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Wait, what?
"This is a white family that stole a Black baby."
I hadn't even thought about that.
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White people need to keep their fucking hands off our children. I'm sick of seeing stories like this and Heart of Jesus do I hate living in Utah. At least I'm in Salt Lake Valley, not Utah Valley.
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Oh wow.
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