OT--Another Tennessee Hate Bill
Tennesee already passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages and refusing legal recognition of such marriages performed elsewhere.
Now there is a bill up that will make it illegal for gay and lesbian couples to adopt:
"The state of Tennessee is currently attempting to pass adoption bills HB 3713 and SB 3910 that would prohibit "any individual who is cohabitating in a sexual relationship outside of a marriage that is valid under the constitution and laws of this state from adopting a minor." This bill affects all unmarried couples wishing to adopt, but more specifically, GLBT couples, who are prohibited from marrying in Tennessee. This bill also affects the hundreds of children waiting to be adopted."
This will prevent lesbian couple from adopting each other's children as well as adoptions from outside. It will probably pass, too.
Even the People's Republic of Massachusetts wasn't immune to this. Back in 1987 when then-Gov. Dukakis was planning to run for President, he signed an executive order banning same-sex couples from participating in the state's foster parent program. It would be one thing if he or his staff actually believed in what he was doing, but it was just a craven attempt to forestall any future controversy on the campaign stump the following year, and even Dukakis, a card-carrying liberal, was more than willing to throw gay families and needy children under the tracks of his election campaign train. Bush I and his election cabal managed to smear Dukakis during the campaign regardless, with the "Willie Horton" parole nonsense, but few gay people had any sympathy for him by then. Once the election was over, this policy was quietly rescinded.
Bizarrely, for the short time that foster parenting was disallowed, legal adoption wasn't affected.
Is there any degree of opposition to this TN bill?
/Steve
I am so glad I live in MA. 
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