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The
Challenge: OK, Legislate!
Letter published in various front range newspapers
Phil Weinstein - January 2004
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State Rep. Pam Rhodes and other proponents of her 2002 Birth
Certificate bill (HB02-1356, prohibiting the establishment of parent-child
relationships in which there are two parents of the same sex), asserted that
only the Colorado Legislature, and not Colorado county family courts, are qualified
to determine which parents get to have their relationships with their children
legally recognized. Boulder Rep. Alice Madden's and
Rep. Betty Boyd's Second-Parent Adoption bill (HB04-1105) gives those legislators
the opportunity they asked for, and challenges them to demonstrate that providing
security to actual children is more important than abstract and irrelevant
personal notions of ideal parents.
Please remind your representatives that the duty of government
in this country is to acknowledge and respect the profound sacred commitments
people make to their families.
- Phil Weinstein
"It's my feeling the judges have evaluated what's in
the best interest of the child," Rep.
Pam Rhodes is quoted after voting to kill the 2004 Second-Parent Adoption
Bill. She is not referring to the decision of a family court judge to grant
the request of any particular same-sex couple to add the second parent to
their child's birth certificate -- a process she sought to outlaw.
Rather, she is referring to an abstract judicial decision which supports her
anti-GLBT bias. Whatever, Pam.
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