Last night on Facebook, I gave Jan Brewer a hair of credit for vetoing a birther bill that would require candidates to prove their US citizenship, either through a birth certificate or perhaps, a circumcision record [really], to Arizona’s Secretary of State before being allowed on the ballot.  Apparently even Jan Brewer is weirded out by the idea of a candidate bringing his ritual penis cutting certificate to the State House. 

But let us not get too excited, please?  Jan Brewer is still one of the world’s worst wingnuts, and the goalposts of “too crazy” have been moved so far to the right in the past several years that she really deserves no credit for doing one sane thing.  Moreover, on the same day she vetoed that birther bill, she signed this one:

Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) signed Senate Bill 1188, requiring state-funded and private adoption agencies “to give primary consideration to adoptive placement with a married man and woman, with all other criteria being equal.” This doesn’t mean that gay couples wouldn’t be able to adopt in the state, but they would have to fall to the back of the line simply because of their sexual orientation.

Absent any evidence that straight adoptive parents are better than gay adoptive parents [religious dogma is not evidence, fools], and flat against the needs of her state’s children, she decided to go ahead and sign this bigoted bill which simply seeks to make gay and lesbian couples’ lives more difficult.

Tom Mann of Equality Arizona had this to say:

“The governor’s action today is harmful to children in foster care and group homes who are seeking a permanent home and the support of a loving, caring family,” Mann said. “SB 1188 takes the focus off of what’s in the best interest of a child when adoption decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, according to what’s in a child’s best interest. Each case is unique. For example, adoption authorities may have the choice between placing a child with a beloved single aunt — or complete strangers. The only consideration should be determining what’s in the best interest of the child.”

Duh.

I don’t agree with every one of his constructions here, as he seems to be talking from the standpoint of “what’s a greater sin? Homosexuality or X?”, but his general point is solid and powerful:

When I told a religious friend about being inspired by Rosie [O'Donnell] adopting four children, he said to me, “How sad that these kids are never going to have a father.” Lost on him was the irony that without Rosie they would not have a mother either.

Now, Rosie has a media microphone and can fend for herself. But I think about all the other gay adoptive parents who are under assault as being ill-equipped to adopt. We’ve heard all the arguments. Gay parents who adopt will make their children gay (offensive and stupid). Every child deserves a mother and a father (I addressed this above). Gay is an abomination, to which I would respond that leaving a child to grow up in an orphanage where nobody wants them might be an even greater act of sacrilege.

But to my fellow straight people I offer the following challenge. You have every right to oppose gay marriage. It’s a free country. We don’t suppress opinions. But aren’t you under a moral obligation to adopt the children in their stead? Surely leaving kids to drown without love is deeply immoral. But to stop others from rescuing them is an abomination.

[...]

A few years ago on my radio show I interviewed two gay men who were in court fighting the government of Florida — my home state, where gay adoption is prohibited — to adopt a five-year-old African-American child who was mentally-handicapped. They had been picking the boy up from an orphanage every Sunday for about a year and now wanted to adopt him. One of the men said, “Nobody wants him. But we want him.” I choked up. The show went to dead air. I could not speak or respond. “Nobody wants him. But we want him.” Here was a child whose skin color for some was all wrong and whose intelligence did not always match up. But to these two men the boy was perfect.

[...]

That some would prefer that unwanted children remain in orphanages rather than in warm and welcoming homes is a sad commentary on the self-appointed morality police of our time.

Click over to read the parts I skipped.

The thesis here, promulgated by Australian pastor Fred Nile, seems to be that pregnant women will be more likely to just have lots of abortions, rather than consider the idea of their offspring being raised by gay parents. This happened in a meeting called in opposition to a bill which would legalize same-sex adoption in Australia:

Addressing the packed public meeting, Christian Democratic Party leader Reverend Fred Nile said the bill could deter women thinking of adopting out their child and “lead to the tragedy of abortion”.

“Any mother putting up her baby for adoption would never imagine that their baby would be brought up by two male homosexuals or two female lesbians,” he said.

“Is this really an ideological issue or homosexuals demanding yet another human right?

WHERE DO THOSE DISGUSTING GAYS GET OFF WANTING “HUMAN RIGHTS”?

Ahem.  What a revealing statement from the “man of God” in Australia that was!

Thankfully, there are sane people in this debate as well:

However, the Benevolent Society charity and UnitingCare Burnside, one of the largest child and welfare agencies in NSW, have come out in support of the bill, saying it will benefit children and boost foster carer numbers.

“We believe that an individual or couple’s sexuality has no relevance when it comes to considering their ability to provide high quality care and a nurturing environment for a child,” Benevolent Society acting CEO Maree Walk said today.

The charity has had contact with many same-sex couples who have adopted children outside of NSW and have found they are highly sensitive to the needs of their child, Ms Walk said.

“Potential adoptive parents should be assessed on the basis of their suitability to parent, not their sexual orientation.”

David Badash points out that in the United States, the states with the lowest levels of child homelessness are the marriage equality states.

I can’t imagine why.  Of course, the states that have marriage equality tend to be run a little bit better than the slave states, so we shouldn’t give all the credit to gay couples.  Just some of it.

In a sample of 106 adoptive children living in different parts of the United States, youngsters were developing well regardless of whether they were living with lesbian, gay or heterosexual parenting couples. The study found that whether or not adoptive children were developing in positive ways was unrelated to the sexual orientation of their adoptive parents.

The finding appears in the August issue of the journal Applied Developmental Science.

“We found that children adopted by lesbian and gay couples are thriving,” said U.Va. psychology professor Charlotte J. Patterson, who led the study. “Our results provide no justification for denying lesbian or gay prospective adoptive parents the opportunity to adopt children. With thousands of children in need of permanent homes in the United States alone, our findings suggest that outreach to lesbian and gay prospective adoptive parents might benefit children who are in need.”

The study was authored by Patterson, who also is a faculty member and research scientist at the Fenway Institute’s Center for Population Research in LGBT Health in Boston; Rachel H. Farr, a U.Va. doctoral candidate; and Stephen L. Forssell, a faculty member in psychology at George Washington University. It was funded by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

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???