Louisiana Horror and the Evaluation of Parenting

This is appalling. A Louisiana man has confessed to murdering his two-year-old son so he wouldn’t have to make child-support payments. The man is divorced, and there is no indication it was because he is LGBT, so I am assuming he’s straight. (If he were LGBT, I’d guess the media would have latched right on to that.)

This is the same week that the state is appealing a federal court ruling to put the names of two gay fathers on the birth certificate of their Louisiana-born son, and in which news is spreading about Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) appointment of ultra-conservatives to the state Commission on Marriage and Family, a move that some see as a prelude to a ban on adoption by same-sex couples. (See also Steve Ralls’ lengthy post at Bilerico on this.)

Seems to me, though, that there’s no necessary connection between sexual orientation and one’s ability to be a good parent, hmm?

On a related note, a quick show of hands here: How many LGBT people in the audience contributed money to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts?

1 thought on “Louisiana Horror and the Evaluation of Parenting”

  1. What an appalling story. And again, even more appalling juxtaposed with the orchestrated attempts to sever LGBTQ people from parenthood.

    As to your question: I gave some money, not a lot. Instead I organized a class on campus about it (root causes, climatalogical and socio-political; various social and physical effects) which ran that very fall, which in turn both educated and motivated 20-30 college students, several of whom were relocated for the term from Tulane and Loyola, and one of whom (a local) went to NOLA to work with Common Ground.

    Interest in the event on campus was very high, and many students in the class realized, for the first time, how intertwined things are, and how it really is possible for the state to invest in the protection of business interests at the cost of poor people. These students would likely never have volunteered to take a class that would explore those topics before. (By the same token, other students had sophisticated critiques already, others used the class as a means to sort and process the shock.)

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