Progressives
just warped the meaning of the word 'parent.' Here's what that means for you
By: Carly Hoilman, 9/5/16
Last week, New York’s highest court
effectively redefined what it means to be a parent. The New York State Court of
Appeals determined
Tuesday that non-biological, non-adoptive
parents can claim custody or visitation rights, marking the unprecedented
expansion of the understanding of parenthood.
The Ruling- Tuesday’s ruling overturned a 1991
decision that limited the legal definition
of parenthood to biological or adoptive relatives, granting only these two
groups the ability to seek custody or visitation rights. In this case, Alison
D. v. Virginia M., the petitioner (Alison D.) sought visitation rights to see
the son of the respondent (Virginia M.) whom Alison D. had helped raise before
the lesbian couple split up. Since the respondent was the only biological
“parent,” and the two were not married, it was determined that Alison D. had no
standing under the New York Domestic Relations Law to seek visitation.
Treating the term “parenthood” as
dispensable opens up the potential for ill-fit guardians, such as the state, to
usurp a position that up until now has been protected under the law.
That all changed this week, when 25
years after Alison D. v. Virginia M., the court ruled in Brooke
S.B. v. Elizabeth A. C.C that non-biological, non-adoptive
parents can seek custody or visitation if “a partner shows by clear and
convincing evidence that the parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise
the child together.”
"This is a major step forward
for same-sex couples and especially for the children of those parents,"
said attorney Eric Wrubel, who argued on behalf of the winning appeal.
"Tying the definition of parenthood to biology or adoption was no longer
viable. This new ruling will help to protect children, regardless of the
marital or financial status of their parents."
Wrubel represented the child in
Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A. C.C, who
was seeking time with both of his mothers after his lesbian parents split
up.
Tuesday’s decision comes five years
after the New York State Senate voted
to legalize gay marriage, and just more
than a year after the nationwide
legalization of gay marriage.
“In light of more recently
delineated legal principles, the definition of ‘parent’ established by this
Court 25 years ago... has become unworkable when applied to increasingly
varied familial relationships,” wrote Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam.
The
Implications
On the one hand, New York's decision
speaks to society’s acceptance of what some call “spiritual” motherhood or
fatherhood — the idea that women and men can demonstrate real maternal or
paternal qualities without having a biological connection to the children under
their care. This is why adoption is accepted and even viewed admirably in most
American circles.
But there’s a case to be made for
why the definition of parenthood should be limited to biology and legal
adoption: Parenthood is a monumental responsibility that requires demonstrable
dedication to a vulnerable class of human beings. A biological mother who
neglects her child is not a parent; nor is a caretaker who has not gone through
the legal process of obtaining custody.
Parenthood is a form of stewardship
that involves contributing to the formation of another human being. Treating
the term “parenthood” as dispensable opens up the potential for ill-fit
guardians, such as the state, to usurp a position that up until now has been
protected under the law.
Writing for The
Federalist last year, author Paul Kengor, who has written a collection of books on communist
ideology, outlined several Marxist ideas that have gained popularity and taken
form in American policy during the last few years.
In the June 29 piece, Kengor first
details portions of “The Origin of the Family,” which scholars consider to be
the first joint work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:
There,
and elsewhere, we see, among other things, a fanatical push to abolish all
right of inheritance, to end home and religious education, to dissolve monogamy
in marriage, to pursue pre- and extra-marital sex, to foster and “tolerate” (as
Engels put it) the “gradual growth of unconstrained sexual intercourse” by
unmarried women, to nationalize all housework, to shift mothers into factories,
to move children into daycare nurseries, to separate children into community
collectives apart from their natural parents, and, most of all, for society and
the state to rear and educate children.
As Engels
envisioned, “the single family ceases to be the economic unit of society.
Private housekeeping is transformed into a social industry. The care and
education of the children becomes a public affair; society looks after all
children alike, whether they are legitimate or not.”
Kengor then moves on to the pair’s
magnum opus, “The Communist Manifesto,” in which Marx and Engels voice similar
goals for what they enthusiastically call the “abolition of the family.” In the
work’s famous 10-point plan for bringing about a communist utopia, Kengor
notes, one will find that half of these points depend on familial dissolution:
1.
Abolition of property in land and
application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2.
A heavy progressive or graduated
income tax.
3.
Abolition of all right of
inheritance.
4.
Confiscation of all property of
emigrants and rebels.
5.
Centralization of credit in the
hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an
exclusive monopoly.
6.
Centralization of the means of
communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7.
Extension of factories and
instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of
waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a
common plan.
8.
Equal obligation of all to work
9.
Gradual abolition of all the
distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the
population over the country.
10.
Free education for all children in
public schools…
More from Kengor:
Overall,
stated Marx and Engels, “The communist revolution is the most radical rupture
with traditional relations; no wonder that its development involves the most
radical rupture with traditional ideas.” Yes, no wonder.
Among
those ideas, at the epicenter, was natural, traditional, biblical family and
marriage. It had to be targeted. Alas, only now, two centuries later, is it
finally being redefined. In perhaps the most radical rapture of all, those
pushing the redefinition are not crackpot German atheistic philosophers in
European cafes but everyday mainstream Americans.
Do we really want to redefine
parenthood and open up a can of communist worms? Do we want to uproot the
foundational social pillar that is the family? Are we ready to cede custody of
our children to the state? We already have.
Editor's
Note: The headline of this piece has been changed to better reflect the
content.
Comments
We in the
US need to reject court opinions and legislation that advances Marxist theory
and fails to recognize that the family is the basic economic unit of any
economy. The government actions taken to comply with Marxist theories have been
a disaster.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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