Aug 21, 2007
Quickie Link: Court Panel Restores Rights of Adopted Kids
By vanrozenheim
(USA) - Should the legal ties between parents and their adopted child unravel if the family leaves the state where the adoption decree was handed down? Of course, not. The very idea is outrageous. But that's what Oklahoma lawmakers were striving for in 2004 with their chillingly titled "Adoption Invalidation Law," which targeted adopted children with Gay parents. That wrongheaded statute declared that Oklahoma would refuse to recognize "an adoption by more than one individual of the same sex from any other state or foreign jurisdiction." In other words, if a Gay couple and the child they adopted in, say, California or Maryland moved to Oklahoma or simply drove through Oklahoma on vacation, they would not be treated as a legally recognized family by any Oklahoma official - whether a police officer, public school teacher or judge.