They’re really batting a thousand down there. A third judge has ruled in favor of adoption rights for gay couples, calling Florida’s adoption ban unconstitutional:
“There is no rational connection between sexual orientation and what is or is not in the best interest of a child,” Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia. She also called the anti-gay adoption law “unconstitutional on its face,” and that it could not be enforced.
“The permanent interests and benefit to all members of the adoptive household will be promoted by the adoption,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote. Alenier “is a fit and proper person to adopt the child and has adequate resources and facilities to care for the child.”
Judge Sampedro-Iglesia’ ruling comes after a judge in Key West, Monroe Circuit Judge David J. Audlin, declared the law unconstitutional, after Audlin’ allowed a gay Key West lawyer, Wayne LaRue Smith, to adopt a boy he had been raising in foster care and Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman approved the adoption of two half brothers by a gay North Miami foster parent, Frank Martin Gill, after she too said the law was unconstitutional.
When judges all over the state are calling a law unconstitutional, it probably is! Just a thought. Also, it becomes hard to throw accusations of “judishul activizm” when judge after judge after judge declares a law unconstitutional.
Still throwing those accusations, though, is Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver.* It’s so sad when Christian Right attorneys try to “do law”:
Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, called Sampedro-Iglesia’ ruling “evidence of judicial activism’ that violates state law.
“A judge is not a legislature onto oneself,” Staver said. “Judges don’t have the ability to write laws any way they desire. They have to follow the rule of law, and this judge did not.”
That’s right, Matthew! Judges are not legislatures! Judges are charged with interpreting the law in light of, in this case, the Florida Constitution, though, which is where things get confusing, so I’ll go slow for you! If judges’ jobs were simply to “follow the rule of law,” regardless of what the Constitution said, then their branch of government wouldn’t really be very important, now would it? But, you see, Matthew, the judicial system** is set up to act as a check on the legislature, so that if the people’s representatives pass unconstitutional laws, like the anti-gay adoption ban, then, in theory, the judges are charged with striking those laws down.
Civics is so confusing, I KNOW!
*SERIOUSLY, where is Lisa Miller?!
**Do they teach the “judicial system” at Liberty???
Tags: adoption, gay adoption, Liberty Counsel, Lisa Miller, Mat Staver2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
[...] Truth Wins Out – Florida’s Anti-Gay Adoption Ban Unconstitutional … [...]
Pingback by gay adoption agency – Calif. gay marriage trial re-enacted on Internet – Yahoo! News — February 3, 2010 @ 10:33 am
This is a true ‘once-upon-a-time’ adoption story. Within it’s telling, revealed are the seedy practices once employed by one Rosie O’Donnell funded — Children of the World Adoption Agency. [COWAA] It ‘was’ located in Verona, New Jersey.
I allude to the past tense so it is not mistaken of mind that this agency’s doors have indeed, remained self-closed since May of 2007. It is also from within these walls where plots were conceived and masqueraded around the workings of a real adoption agency. Therein, it is even apparent in Rosie’s own penned words that she agrees with these activities. Sadly, one thing definitely not found in her book “Find Me” was a way to read between its lines. And as for this agency’s downfall; the reasons lay in the dark history behind its corporate suicide!
Had someone found this company’s blueprint for wrongful adoption?
Yet, there wouldn’t be any such findings if the public would have inquired about this closure from the State. — Government spokesperson, Douglass Swann would not have given such an implicating description of its dissolution. How do I know these details?
… It was me that forced the State Attorney General Office to lean heavily on an already suspect New Jersey Department of Human Services. They in turn, were instructed to offer unto COWAA a take it or leave it proposition for the Board of Trustees. That thought withstanding, and whilst all faces were longer than the table at which they sat, it must have been the Chairwoman of the Board, a Mrs. Margaret Morrisey, who probably thought it better to reserve the company a more preferable choice-spot in hell! This of course, if there is such…
How did this all come about? …Truly, in a picture painted by ART! [Adoption's Real Triad!] This three-party dynamic of the New Jersey adoption machine has members that consist of an adoption attorney, an adoption agency and the New Jersey Office of Licensing [OOL]. Moreover, all three factions would unwillingly participate in an unwanted conspiracy. It is your choice for reason, be it greed or the betterment of mankind?
Therein, it was in 2001 when COWAA executive director Veronica Serio lied to the OOL. Never mind that she is the same woman who had actually helped the late Seton Hall Professor James Boskey write adoption law. [...Sell what it is that you secretly destroy?]
Alas, and as for ART’s last member of this adoption equation, sometimes it just pays to look good while doing what one does! Or as perceived in this case, maybe the following committed acts would avert a possible true human effigy burning throughout the streets of Kendall Park, New Jersey! Although he had committed no wrongdoing, adoption attorney Steven Sklar would eventually lie to the State Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Review Board. This was the second time his lie covered what I call an unethical adoption practice. Astonishingly though, there was not need for the use of his deceit… [N.J.S.A. 3: 3-39, 1 {b, c}]
The State Statutes of law grant all adoption attorneys the power to hide adoption fraud busting evidence. However, if word was to get out that his practice had withheld evidence…; well uh, does anybody have a cigarette lighter?
Sadly, and in reference to the state of affairs in Jersey, my victory in overturning an initial attorney ethics case dismissal ended up dashed at the Supreme Court’s doorstep. I further realized the futility of it all when my mind grasped the intent of a letter sent by these so-called “of the esteemed.” Their corresponding words were marked of brilliance. They profoundly state, “Your grievance, even if true would not constitute incapacity or unethical practice.” This is odd, because it had worked in the demise of COWAA!
My son was born on October 20, 2001. I think he lives in New Jersey.
It is by the right to bring out the truth by means of the New Jersey Open Public Records Act, and my faith in God that allow me to make plans to one day meet my son. He will hear the real story.
My name is David Archuletta, an Unknown Father.
Comment by david archuletta — March 29, 2010 @ 7:32 pm