EXTENDED FAMILY VALUES, PART I
By letting a state court rulling stand, the U.S. Supreme Court will let the littlest Postrels--my niece and nephew--stay in the family:
The U.S. Supreme Court left intact Monday a ground-breaking decision that validated a popular adoption procedure used by thousands of gay and lesbian couples in California. The court refused to review a California Supreme Court decision in August allowing second-parent adoptions, an arrangement in which a birth parent who intends to keep a child also agrees to have it adopted by a second parent. The state court's decision recognized as many as 20,000 adoptions by same-sex couples over the past two decades.
Imagine suddenly declaring 20,000 kids no longer part of their families--not just legally voiding their parents but their grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Legally, this case didn't seem all that strong--and you have to wonder about the moral compass of the woman who brought it--but it did go all the way to the supreme courts of both the state and the nation.