A federal appeals court in Colorado is reviewing a two-year-old Oklahoma law that not only prohibits gays from adopting children in the state but invalidates adoptions by gays in other states if the families were to move to Oklahoma:
In May a lower court struck down the law in a 31 page ruling that was highly critical of the state legislature for passing the measure.
The Adoption Invalidation Law, hastily passed at the end of the 2004 Oklahoma legislative session, had said that Oklahoma “shall not recognize an adoption by more than one individual of the same sex from any other state or foreign jurisdiction.”
Lambda Legal, representing same-sex couples took the state to court, calling the law so extreme it had the potential to make children adopted by same-sex couples in other states legal orphans when the families are in Oklahoma.
“The very fact that the adoptions have occurred is evidence that a court of law has found the adoptions to be in the best interests of the children,” wrote U. S. District Judge Robin Cauthron.
“To now attempt to strip a child of one of his or her parents seems far removed from the statute’s purpose and therefore from [the state’s] asserted important government objective.”
This is a window into the American Taliban mindset: Punishing gay people is worth the effort at any cost, even if it means taking children away from their parents and returning them to orphanages.
