Judge Disrupts Home Life of Child in Foster Care, Because Heterosexism

Can we get a big, loud *slow clap* for Team Bigotry?

According to Utah's Division of Child and Family Services (via Deseret News), a judge has ordered the removal of a 1-year-old child from the home of her lesbian foster parents.  

Rather than basing his decision on the content of the couple's parenting skills, the judge, Scott Johansen, purportedly based his decision on their sexual orientation.  In so doing, the various news accounts I've read claim that he referenced, but did not specifically cite, "studies" allegedly showing that heterosexual parents were "better" than same-sex parents (scare quotes mine). 

(Hmm, I wonder if Johansen had read the widely-discredited Regnerus study?)

The two women had the support of the child's biological mother to be foster parents, and Utah DCFS director Brent Platt is quoted in the Deseret article as follows:

"'There weren't any concerns about the family and no concerns about the placement, it sounds like [the judge] has concerns overall with same-sex couples being foster parents.'

Hoagland and Peirce have met every DCFS requirement to become licensed foster parents, including routine reviews with the division while they have been caring for the child, according to Platt. If the girl would have become eligible for adoption and the couple had expressed interest in taking her, the division intended to support them, he noted.

'It's my understanding they have a couple of older children, these are experienced parents," Platt said. 'As far as we're concerned, it was an appropriate placement. It was a placement that worked for the kid and worked for the family, so we were surprised the judge issued that order.'"

The child has been living with the couple for 3 months, and the judge has ordered her removal within a week to an as-yet-unidentified family.  Thus further disrupting the child's life. You know, because outcomes.

From her much-lauded 2014 dissent to the 6th Circuit opinion that upheld same-sex marriage bans, Judge Martha Daughtry's quote regarding the illogic of anti-gay advocacy seems apt:

"How ironic that irresponsible, unmarried, opposite-sex couples in the Sixth Circuit who produce unwanted offspring must be 'channeled' into marriage and thus rewarded with its many psychological and financial benefits, while same-sex couples who become model parents are punished for their responsible behavior by being denied the right to marry."

And, apparently, the ability to be foster parents. (Although I want to be careful to note that in this particular case, we do not know the circumstances of the biological parents. Unlike the "pro-family" crowd, I think people put their children up for adoption for a myriad of reasons, only one of which might be "irresponsibility.")

The facts about "pro-family" actually being pro-family speak for themselves.

Whether they're promoting fraudulent "ex-gay therapy" that does more harm than good, ripping children from stable homes, or running dehumanizing smear campaigns to deny trans* people access to bathrooms, Traditional Family Warriors ("TFWs"- let's make it a thing) so often prioritize their own selfish bigotries and prejudices over the actual best interests of children.