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Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Not all heroes wear capes.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The revolution will be supervised.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

I really should read my own blog.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / LGBTQ Rights / Gay Rights are Human Rights / The Arc Of The Universe…

The Arc Of The Universe…

by | 96 Comments

This post is in: 

…Caught in the act of bending.

Here’s the sequence:

On Tuesday, November 10, Utah juvenile court judge Scott N. Johansen ordered that teh Utah Division of Child and Family Services remove a nine-month old baby girl from a married lesbian couple who had fostered the child since August, writing that

“it is not in the best interest of children to be raised by same-sex couples…”

The couple asked him to reconsider his decision, and said they would appeal.

The_Mirror,1905

Today, Johansen did rescind his order, but still maintened that

“…research has shown that children are more emotionally and mentally stable when raised by a mother and father in the same home.”

That fingers-crossed assertion sets up an interesting hearing to come on what placement serves the best interests of the baby.

So far, seemingly a familiar story of gay/lesbian shaming crap mitigated, a bit, by the existence of whatever it was that compelled Johansen to walk his bigotry-in-power back a few steps.  But then this caught my eye:

Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican, weighed in on the issue Thursday, saying that he was “a little puzzled” by the judge’s action. “He may not like the law,” the governor said, “but he should follow the law.”

I know it shouldn’t be too much to ask a senior elected official to give a shout out to the rule of law, but credit where credit is due:  Gov. Herbert nailed it, and in doing so, reminds us of this:  the arc of the universe often seem to bend way too slowly, but it can indeed — on good days —  incline towards justice.

Mary Cassatt, The Mirror, 19o5

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  3. 3.

    henqiguai

    So, your zero key broken? ‘Cause what’s otherwise up with the ‘o’ in the painting’s title?

    Mary Cassatt, The Mirror, 19o5

    Sitting here feeling kind’a blah, jumping on the opportunity to be a twit.

  8. 8.

    gvg

    I have been a foster mom in Florida. There aren’t enough foster homes. I have come to the conclusion that some children are not removed from parents that should be because the state agencies have nowhere to put them. They hold off where the threat is not really obvious and sometimes the results are very bad. I have had multiple weekly placement calls when we had what we felt we could handle. They sound so desperate to place, especially late in the evening. These…moralists, seem to assume that the lesbians and gays are displacing straight married couples from getting the children. I assure you the straight married couples are full up too and dear deluded judge why don’t you do all the classes, pass the background checks and get yourself in the program? And by the way singles are foster parents too. There just aren’t enough.

  10. 10.

    debbie

    Somewhat related:

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34815338

    “A group of Mormons have planned a “mass resignation” after leaders changed church policies regarding gay people.

    The rules, which were not meant to be made public, say children living with a gay parent cannot be baptised until they are 18 and only when they renounce homosexuality.

    The new rules also say members can be expelled from the church if they enter into a gay marriage.

    Both liberal and conservatives Mormon groups have criticised the the changes.””

  13. 13.

    debbie

    Jeez, just one link brings on moderation? My link was to an article about a mass resignation by Mormons scheduled for tomorrow in protest to new anti-homosexuality rules.

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack

    @debbie:

    At this point you can’t just throw a naked hyperlink in a comment. You have to use the link gizmo (button above the comment box) to dress it up to be acceptable to FYWP.

    It should end up having this form:

    <a href="URL">DESCRIPTION</a>

  21. 21.

    daveNYC

    I liked the Utah DHS equivalent’s take on it, which was basically, ‘We don’t want to disobey a judges orders, but we also don’t want our agents to break the law.’

  25. 25.

    Germy

    I saw this PSA and it’s really haunted me.

    As an ACA (adult child of an etc) I believe that a loving, stable home is more important than the gender of the parents.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    @Germy: .
    This is the same state with a law on the books making it illegal to reveal whether a school teacher is packing heat. Anything Utah does “for the kids” it should be instantly suspect.

  32. 32.

    bystander

    @Germy:

    As an ACA (adult child of an etc) I believe that a loving, stable home is more important than the gender of the parents.

    “Etc” being a polite way of saying…? Help me out here, please. Looks like the work of Otto Korrekt.

  33. 33.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    We all need to keep highlighting that until the culprit (he knows who he is) changes it. Or better, deletes it; it doesn’t need to be there, above a button that already says “Donate with PayPal”.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Next you’ll be asking for the redundant FRONT PAGE POSTS to be removed.

    Duh! – it’s the front page.

    Or OUR MOST RECENT POSTS.

    Who else’s would they be?

    :)

    ;)

  38. 38.

    Cervantes

    @NotMax:

    Well, in the right-hand column, we have an infelicitous Random Quote, a redundant Search Balloon Juice and a redundant Follow Balloon Juice, as well as a Dontate via PayPal.

    But who’s counting?

    (I assume it will all be cleaned up eventually and in any event I’m not worrying.)

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:
    The Department of Redundancy Department has partnered with the Department of Consuming Above-the-Fold Space and are twirling, twirling to VICTORY.

  42. 42.

    Jay C

    Didn’t Judge Johansen also cite, in his ruling, some discredited “study” about the supposedly heinous effects on children of being raised by same-sex-couple parents? A study that, IIRC, another judge had already ruled as irrelevant, unscientific nonsense – for legal purposes?

    Sounds very much like the “arguments” which were used (thankfully, unsuccessfully) in the attempts to uphold California’s Prop. 8: emotive “think of the children!!” appeals, which never seems to actually identify any specific harm to anyone (outside of the serious butthurt to homophobic bigots’ sensitivities, of course….)

  45. 45.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Amir Khalid: That was among the things MBBJ fixed until the latest tweaks. : ( Along with lots of redundant FP titles, and adding contrasting alternating comment backgrounds. I’m probably going to partake of a strong cocktail later in grief. MBBJ and EBBJ had it fixed, Bobdammit. Except no comment numbers or black bold, but that was minor.

    @Amir Khalid: Needle at your own risk, she notes bravely, without using a proxy. Yes I’m still pretty pissed off, why do you ask?

  48. 48.

    trollhattan

    @Jay C: Generally find myself blind to history in the making, but suspect Prob 8 will be identified as a pivot point in gaining mainstream acceptance of gay rights. Only after it passed did most Californians discover what the hell they’d voted for and enough were appalled that the state has never been the same. If something similar is happening in Utah seven years later, then good. Those folks dumped a crap-ton of cash into Prop 8.

  50. 50.

    Matt McIrvin

    @trollhattan: I think the reaction to Prop 8 stung the Mormon church too. They’ve been trying to make these weird overtures in the direction of tolerating gay people ever since then, though then they always do something else to cancel it out.

  52. 52.

    JustRuss

    @gvg: This. The assumption that if we remove a child from a lesbian couple there will be a safe, welcoming, heterosexual home waiting for them relies on delusional wishful thinking. Like most conservative policy.

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    @Matt McIrvin:
    Agree. Remember the row over publishing the donor list? Holy catfish, those folks were running scared, as though each would have a gay assigned to camp on their doorstep. The out of state Mormon and Catholic donations were startling.

  55. 55.

    Gex

    Yep, it’s been a bad week for fundie Mormons in Utah. This judge had to rescind his ruling and the LDS had to “clarify” their new “fuck gays and their children” rules. It is nice to see.

    Of course they consider it a loss of freedoms and religious persecution, but oh well.

    Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    It may be true that, in an ideal world, every kid would be raised by a pair of normal, loving, non-abusive, non-addicted parents who are married to each other but — surprise! — we live in the real world, not an ideal one. Most of us have to get by doing the best we can, and if there are big-hearted people out there who are willing to take care of kids who had the misfortune to be born to crappy parents, I think that sexual orientation (and gender identification, and race) should be way, WAY down on the list of important characteristics for those foster parents to have. Assuming those characteristics should make the list at all.

    (And don’t even get me started on the people who think existing gay or transgender parents should have their kids taken away. Assholes.)

  62. 62.

    debbie

    Anyway, according to the BBC, there will be mass resignations from the Mormon church by people objecting to new Mormon anti-homosexuality regulations (children of gay couples can’t be baptized, etc.). If people actual follow through and resign, it will be interesting to see if it changes anything.

  71. 71.

    benw

    …the arc of the universe often seem to bend way too slowly, but it can indeed — on good days — incline towards justice.

    So, you mean rainbow-shaped?

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    @gvg: Good on you for being a foster mom.

    That’s on my bucket list. And thanks for the response to use on those worried about teh gheys displacing teh straights as foster parents.

    A good parent is a good parent.

  73. 73.

    pat

    OK, since we’re complaining, count me among those who don’t care for that funny guy with the megaphone at the top of every post.

  74. 74.

    Bruce Webb

    “…research has shown that children are more emotionally and mentally stable when raised by a mother and father in the same home.”

    So every upper middle class or weatlhy family that leaves their kid mostly in the care of an au pair or nanny actually ARE History’s Worst Monsters. With the only Worser Worst Monsters being those who send their kids away to Boarding School and Summer Camp. Because generations of wealthy fathers only seeing their kids for three minutes before bedtime or on School Holidays and then passing them back off to their version of Mary Poppins or Mr. Chips is actually child abuse.

    Good to know. Explains a lot about the 1%.

  76. 76.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Germy: I’m very humor-impaired, and pretty sure I’m missing an obvious joke, but while that site says they are “translations,” they are nothing of the kind. The English text accompanying those pictures bears no relationship to the Russian text superimposed on the pictures (which is generally funny in its own way.)

  77. 77.

    Roger Moore

    @JustRuss:

    This. The assumption that if we remove a child from a lesbian couple there will be a safe, welcoming, heterosexual home waiting for them relies on delusional wishful thinking.

    I am not sure it’s even that level of thinking. They don’t really care about the kids in foster care; they care about being as awful as possible to LGBTQ people. All of the arguments about why they shouldn’t be allowed to be foster parents- or to be adoptive parents, get married, have sexual relationships with the person of their choice, etc.- are so much rationalization. The major point is to mistreat Those People, and everything else is window dressing.

  78. 78.

    Germy

    @Gin & Tonic:No, they are not really translations.
    I think the fact that you understand Russian ruins the joke for you. I don’t understand Russian, so I find the captions hilarious without being distracted by the actual Russian text.

    I believe the original Russian text is simply sentimental sayings. The English “translations” are Soviet Union ultra-patriotic slogans, which I found amusing coming from cats, who follow no leaders.

  79. 79.

    Bob Munck

    “…research has shown that children are more emotionally and mentally stable when raised by a mother and father in the same home.”

    The judge seems to be unaware of the fact that statistics about a large group of people do not give you any information whatsoever about an individual member of that group.

  80. 80.

    Amir Khalid

    @pat:
    Tsk, tsk. The Balloon Guy is an iconic figure, dating back to Balloon Juice’s early days. When John Cole had him taken out a few site redesigns ago, there was much lamenting and rending of garments among the Juicitariat. I for one am glad to see him back, bullhorn and all.

  82. 82.

    scav

    @Bob Munck: The actual spirit of the law, religious texts or statistics are meaningless, all that matters is their ability to temporarily wield the object as a weapon against those others.

  83. 83.

    Seanly

    Idaho had something similar happen just a couple of years ago. The state statutes don’t contain any mention of the sex of the adopting parties. My friends Darcy & Rene were a long time couple with a biological child of Rene’s & another adopted by Rene. They had married in CA, but their children had come before that. Darci tried to legally adopt both boys and the local judge said she couldn’t. LINK

  85. 85.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Is there a Median God too?

    The religious practices of the Medes are not 100% clear. They may have practiced Zoroastrianism or Mithraism (or possibly each at different times and places), so the Median God would probably be either Ahura Mazda or Mithra.

  86. 86.

    Thoughtful David

    @Amir Khalid:
    Edna Mode is, like, my favorite animated character after Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. I really like it that she’s based on Edith Head and voiced by a guy, who was the producer.

  90. 90.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid: I don’t think that was the original balloon guy. Even so, he was part of the balloon juice logo, not a big separate picture at the top of the blog. Oh well, there’s progress being made, but it’s been a long 10 days.

  91. 91.

    The Other Chuck

    Got up the energy to fix some of the MBBJ styles. EBBJ still works some, and TBG is just going to have to wait a bit.

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