I debated for a while whether or not to talk about this. But, I decided I would. The reason I hesitate is that it doesn't solely affect Southern gay couples, but I feel that gay couples are the target of the spirit f the law. Louisiana recently defeated a bill that would have allowed unmarried singles to adopt children together. Married couples and single individuals are not affected by this bill.
Ok, so what's the harm? Married couples can adopt. Great. They should be able to. But not everyone can legally marry, effectively keeping children out of loving homes of gay couples. There's still single adoption, right? Well, sure. There's nothing that explicitly says that a single gay person can't adopt children. However, that leaves one parent with absolutely no parental rights. They can't make medical decisions in an emergency or technically even sign a permission slip for a field trip. It doesn't matter how much that 2nd parent is involved in the child's life. They have no say. I'm assuming here that in the event the legal adoptive parent dies or is unable to care for the children, they would be placed in state custody, even if the 2nd parent was willing and able to take care of them. It's possible that state custody would be temporary, but it would require court hearings and a lot unnecessary red tape. And there's always the chance that the courts would say no, especially if they came before a judge that was adamantly opposed to gay adoption in the first place. Let's be honest; as much as I love the South, we encounter more obstacles here than other parts of the country. I hope to see the day that these issues aren't a problem here. But there's a lot of work to be done.
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