{"id":532392,"date":"2010-04-18T07:38:48","date_gmt":"2010-04-18T11:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thehollywoodliberal.com\/2010\/04\/18\/judge-strikes-down-arkansas-law-banning-same-sex-couples-from-adopting\/"},"modified":"2010-04-18T07:38:48","modified_gmt":"2010-04-18T11:38:48","slug":"judge-strikes-down-arkansas-law-banning-same-sex-couples-from-adopting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/532392","title":{"rendered":"Judge strikes down Arkansas law banning same-sex couples from adopting."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2010\/04\/17\/arkansas-adoption\/\" >Judge strikes down Arkansas law banning same-sex couples from adopting. \t\t<\/a><br \/>Yesterday, a Circuit judge struck down a state law banning unmarried couples from adopting children or serving as foster parents. The measure amounted to a ban on adoption and foster parenting by same-sex couples, who are banned from legally marrying in Arkansas. &#8220;Due process and equal protection are not hollow words without substance,&#8221; said Judge [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, a Circuit judge <a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/lgbt-rights\/arkansas-court-strikes-down-parenting-ban\">struck down<\/a> a state law banning unmarried couples from adopting children or serving as foster parents. The measure amounted to a ban on adoption and foster parenting by same-sex couples, who are banned from legally marrying in Arkansas. &#8220;<a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/04\/17\/us\/17brfs-ADOPTIONBANS_BRF.html\">Due process and equal protection<\/a> are not hollow words without substance,&#8221; said Judge Chris Piazza of Pulaski County Circuit Court. The Arkansas News <a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/arkansasnews.com\/2010\/04\/16\/judge-strikes-down-adoption-ban\/\">reports<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Act 1, passed by voters in 2008, <strong>unconstitutionally burdens non-marital relationships and acts of sexual intimacy between adults by forcing them to choose between becoming a parent and having any meaningful type of intimate relationship outside of marriage<\/strong>, Circuit Judge Chris Piazza ruled in a lawsuit challenging the law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt infringes upon the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed to all citizens of Arkansas,\u201d the judge ruled in the lawsuit filed by the ACLU.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Piazza also &#8220;sided with the ACLU in its argument that the ban <a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/arkansasnews.com\/2010\/04\/16\/judge-strikes-down-adoption-ban\/\">reduced the pool of potential adoptive and foster parents<\/a> to the point where many children could go without homes.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2010\/04\/17\/bloggers-nazi-racist-tea-partier\/\" >Delirious Right Wing Bloggers Claim ?Proud Racist? Tea Party Attendee Was A ?Leftist Plant? \t\t<\/a><br \/>At Thursday&#8217;s tea party rally in St. Louis, conservative blogger-activist Adam Sharp confronted a racist, Nazi-sympathizer who attended the event. Sharp approached the unidentified racist who was wearing a black shirt with a swastika on the back of it, and told him that shirt &#8220;doesn&#8217;t represent tea party values&#8221; and asked him to leave. The [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>At Thursday&#8217;s tea party rally in St. Louis, conservative blogger-activist <a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/sharpelbowsstl.blogspot.com\/2010\/04\/dem-shill-wears-nazi-gear-to-tea-party.html\">Adam Sharp confronted a racist<\/a>, Nazi-sympathizer who attended the event. Sharp approached the unidentified racist who was wearing a black shirt with a swastika on the back of it, and told him that shirt &#8220;doesn&#8217;t represent tea party values&#8221; and asked him to leave. The white racist man responded, &#8220;I&#8217;m with the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan. We are a white unit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After Sharp accused the unidentified man of not belonging to the tea party, the racist responded, &#8220;Do you belong to the Council of Conservative Citizens? &#8230; I do.&#8221; Sharp continued to hound the man, asking him to leave and demanding to know whether he was a racist. &#8220;I&#8217;m not a Nazi, I&#8217;m a proud racist. I&#8217;m white,&#8221; the man said. <\/p>\n<p>Sharp then loudly declared, &#8220;He&#8217;s here representing &#8211;&#8221; but then cut himself off. He&#8217;s &#8220;trying to pretend that we&#8217;re racist,&#8221; Sharp clarified. &#8220;No, I&#8217;m not,&#8221; the racist said, later telling Sharp more people need to stand up for their &#8220;white rights.&#8221; &#8220;Race has nothing to do with this, sir,&#8221; Sharp answered. &#8220;We&#8217;re here protesting policy, sir, I don&#8217;t care what race anybody is.&#8221; Eventually, Sharp&#8217;s persistent hounding of the racist man caused him to leave the rally. Watch Sharp&#8217;s report:<\/p>\n<p><center><object width=\"320\" height=\"260\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/GYfmShJe5MA&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/GYfmShJe5MA&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"320\" height=\"260\"><\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n<p>In a blog post promoting his video, Sharp titled the post, &#8220;Dem Shill Wears Nazi Gear to TEA Party, Gets Called Out.&#8221; There is no evidence on the tape to suggest the racist man was a &#8220;Dem shill.&#8221; And in fact, Sharp never accuses the man of being a liberal in his encounter with him. Rather, the tape shows the racist man explicitly touting his conservative bona fides.<\/p>\n<p>Another conservative blog, Gateway Pundit, picked up Sharp&#8217;s post and titled their own: &#8220;Racist Leftist Infiltrators Driven From Tea Party Rallies.&#8221; Gateway Pundit&#8217;s Jim Hoft, who cross-posted on Andrew Breitbart&#8217;s <a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/biggovernment.com\/jhoft\/2010\/04\/16\/racist-leftist-infiltrators-driven-from-tea-party-rallies\/\">Big Government site<\/a>, argued that the racist was a &#8220;<a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/gatewaypundit.firstthings.com\/2010\/04\/racist-leftist-infiltrators-driven-from-tea-party-rallies-video\/\">leftist plant<\/a>.&#8221; Hoft implored his readers to contact him if they could identify him as such. <\/p>\n<p>Powerline, another leading conservative blog, joined in the spectacle, telling their readers: &#8220;Jim is asking for help identifying <a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.powerlineblog.com\/archives\/2010\/04\/026084.php\">the infiltrator<\/a> depicted below.&#8221; Fortunately, there&#8217;s at least one conservative blog that isn&#8217;t buying the spin. Writing on HotAir.com, blogger Allahpundit reviews the racist man in Sharp&#8217;s video and concludes, &#8220;[I]n fairness to lefties, <a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/hotair.com\/archives\/2010\/04\/16\/video-meet-the-tea-party-infiltrators\/\">he may be the real deal<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s one thing for conservative tea party activists to courageously confront their own racist sympathizers. That is to be respected. But it&#8217;s quite another for them to baselessly and shamefully smear &#8220;leftists&#8221; for being Nazi racist infiltrators.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Judge strikes down Arkansas law banning same-sex couples from adopting. Yesterday, a Circuit judge struck down a state law banning unmarried couples from adopting children or serving as foster parents. The measure amounted to a ban on adoption and foster parenting by same-sex couples, who are banned from legally marrying in Arkansas. &#8220;Due process and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":807,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/807"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}