Groups Clash Over Proposed Adoption Ban
Gay and lesbian representatives sharply clashed with the religious right Thursday during a hearing on the Wilson administration’s proposal to prevent adoptions by unmarried couples.
Jon W. Davidson, supervising attorney for Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, the nation’s oldest and largest lesbian and gay rights legal issues organization, attacked the plan as an attempt to keep gays and lesbians from becoming adoptive parents.
“These new proposals are unnecessary,” Davidson said, “and are based on prejudice and animus toward lesbian and gay men and women. The guiding force should be the best interests of the child.”
But the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, a national organization of 32,000 churches, said now isn’t the time to “push the [social] envelope, but to restore the primacy of marriage within the law and culture. . . . The best environment is one with a married man and woman.”
Sheldon and Davidson spoke at a state Department of Social Services hearing in Santa Ana to review the adoption regulation changes proposed by Gov. Pete Wilson’s administration.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
