Judge points way for gay parental rights
By Deb Price, The Detroit News from the Web, January 18, 2005
Walking to his high school cafeteria in Fayetteville, Ark., Willie Wagner was jumped by a pack of anti-gay thugs who poured out of a pickup truck.
Kicked by a boy wearing cowboy boots and beaten by the others, Willie, barely 16, suffered a broken nose, bruised kidneys and cuts.
The Wagner family ultimately won a lawsuit against the school system for failing to protect Willie as harassment escalated and his parents urgently pleaded for help.
A teacher had anonymously warned that a $500 bounty was being offered to anyone who killed the gay teen.
Unexpectedly, something wonderful grew out of the 1996 attack on Willie:
Troubled kids -- most of them gay -- began flocking to the Wagner home. Word spread that Bill and Carolyn Wagner were adults who could be trusted.
Over the next few years, the Wagners provided a haven to 80 kids, including a lesbian whose father beat her with a log chain.
Some camped out a few nights on the sofa. Others simply needed supportive advice.
"We were trying to be as good to these children as our own children," recalls Bill Wagner, who makes eyeglasses at Wal-Mart.
"We were a safe place for kids to come and talk and figure out what to do."
But when the Wagners tried to take the logical next step by becoming foster parents, the state of Arkansas rejected them.
A 1999 regulation prohibited anyone gay -- or anyone with a gay adult in their home -- from being a foster parent.
"We could kick our own son out to become foster parents," explains Bill Wagner.
"That was totally unacceptable." So the Wagners joined a challenge led by the American Civil Liberties Union.
After a trial in which experts detailed research showing children do fine when raised by gay adults, Arkansas Judge Timothy Fox recently overturned the ban.
The case, now on appeal, could be the next about gay parenting issues to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
(The high court recently declined to rule on Florida's ban on adoption by gays.)
Judge Fox's thoughtful ruling should be required reading for any state official tempted to slap anti-gay restrictions on adoption or foster-care rules.
His decision is one of a pair of breakthrough rulings in red states since the Nov. 2 elections:
The Montana Supreme Court ruled it's unconstitutional for state universities to deny benefits to the partners of gay workers.
The Arkansas trial, the judge pointed out, "presented us with an excellent opportunity to replace ignorance with knowledge and to make an informed decision based on information as opposed to assumption."
He eloquently continued, "We must always remain mindful ... that some of the cherished societal mores of our present may very well one day become the regretted bigotry of our past.
Things change, sometimes too fast for those who are comfortable in the skin of the status quo, sometimes excruciatingly slow for those waiting their time under the sun.
For those truly interested in reaching an informed decision (about appropriate qualifications for foster parents) ... the court strongly recommends careful reading of the information ... in the record of this case."
The judge, whose ruling can be read at aclu.org, concluded:
• Kids raised by gay parents aren't at increased risk for psychological, behavioral, social, academic or gender identity problems.
• No evidence shows that gay people are more likely than heterosexuals to molest children.
• Nothing supports the claim that heterosexual parents do better than gay parents in guiding kids through adolescence.
Eventually, the sort of bigotry that broke Willie Wagner's nose and twisted Arkansas' foster-care rules will vanish.
Today, we need more public servants with the wisdom to be guided by facts, not fictions.
You can reach Deb Price at (202) 906-8205 or dprice@detnews.com.
Published this date in the NJ Home News Tribune under: 'Judge asserts gay adults can be good parents
too'
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