Unfit parents...

Former Madisonian Dan Savage appears on today's NYT Op-Ed page with a column on the success of hate amendments. He decries the approval of these amendments in Florida, Arizona and, remarkably, California. Savage points out, however, that despite how horrible these amendments to a state's constitution are, the looming issue may well be the approval in Arkansas of an "unfit to parent" intiative.

That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

Savage offers more on what may lie ahead in the "pro-family" groups, as they find another issue with which to lambast the "other." I am completely confident that I am on the correct side of this issue, but I admit, with each successive new law and amendment I quiver at the lack of compassion and understanding that undergirds our American society.

Most ominous, once “pro-family” groups start arguing that gay couples are unfit to raise children we might adopt, how long before they argue that we’re unfit to raise those we’ve already adopted? If lesbian couples are unfit to care for foster children, are they fit to care for their own biological children?

The loss in California last week was heartbreaking. But what may be coming next is terrifying.

This may seem completely preposterous, and unlikely to pass, but these groups have been able to put some ludicrous issues on the ballot (i.e. Colorado's human at conception amendment). And to think that these issues won't continue to be exploited by hate mongers is to be naive. This is just another point against a corrupted religious society, whereby tolerance, equality and love are pushed aside in the name of fear-mongering, discrimination, and clean-old-fashioned hate.