Opponents Protest Anti-Gay Adoption Bill

Written by Roger Alford Thursday, 26 February 2009 08:42

A measure that would bar gay and lesbian couples from adopting children is sparking protests in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Anthony and Richard Harland-Bennett are strongly critical of legislation that would bar gays and lesbians from adopting children in Kentucky, calling it "a hate bill" that lawmakers should not approve.

The same-sex parents of an adopted 7-year-old daughter were among about 100 opponents who gathered in the Capitol on Wednesday to boisterously voice their opposition. Their calls for "fairness" echoed from the Rotunda down the marble hallways.

Anthony Harland-Bennett said gay and lesbian couples and their adopted children too often face "hostility and maliciousness from bigots and religious zealots" who promote such measures under the guise of protecting children.

"Here in Kentucky, it is that hate that ought to be banned and not our family," he said. "You cannot legislate compassion. However, we can and must leave hatred and bigotry out of our laws."

The Harland-Bennetts of Goshen said they adopted their daughter Amber in Wisconsin, where children can legally be placed with gay and lesbian parents. They later moved to Kentucky, and now they said they fear that if the legislation passes they may have to move elsewhere to preserve their family.

Louisville civil rights group The Fairness Campaign organized the rally against the legislation that would also bar unmarried heterosexual couples from adopting children or providing foster care.

The measure would allow children to be placed only homes with people who "are not cohabitating outside of a marriage that is legally valid in Kentucky."

Chris Hartman, head of The Fairness Campaign, said the legislation unjustly rules out potentially good parents just because they're not married in the traditional sense.

Hartman said at least six other states -- Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah -- have similar laws that he called "direct attacks" on nontraditional couples.

Proponents say the intent of the bill is to assure that children are place in "stable environments" in both adoptive and foster homes.

"Gay rights activists have decided this is a political issue when it is really an issue about the welfare of children," said David Edmunds, a policy analyst for The Family Foundation, a Lexington-based group. "I believe that most Kentuckians understand just through common sense that children who are wards of the state deserve the most stable environment that we can find."

Edmunds said he expects the measure, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Gary Tapp of Shelbyville, will pass in the Senate. But he isn't sure of its prospects in the Democrat-controlled House.

"There is certainly opposition to it," Edmunds said. "But this is Kentucky, not San Francisco."

State Sen. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, urged colleagues to kill the measure.

"We cannot afford to let those children be pawns of those who want to use homophobia yet again to scare the citizens to pass this kind of bill," she said.

------

The legislation is Senate Bill 68.