Two test this week have the potential for America to extend the definition of the family, more and more, including homosexuals.In Boston, the state of the Superior Court examines the legality of same-sex marriage. If the judge on the side of complainants - seven gay couples and lesbians - Massachusetts could be the first state in the country to sanction homosexual marriages.
In Miami, a federal appeals court, the four men could adopt children, hold them, because Florida’s categorical prohibition of the adoption of gay people. Although Florida is currently the only country with such a law, a decision would affect the adoption of practices across the country.
“For a long time, the courts have an important role to play in redefining the family,” said Elizabeth Bartholet, an expert on family law at Harvard Law School. “Both [cases] are very important. In part, because one of the main areas in which the traditional definition of the family must face the challenge of dealing with gay and lesbian training.
And the direction in the courts moving slowly. In 1986, the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick, that gays, under penalty of behaviour was acceptable. But over the past five years, he was, what Ms. Bartholet calls for a “strong trend” of family courts granting more rights for lesbians and homosexuals. The High Court is also a resumption in 1986 of its decision in a case this year.
In the case of many respects, this week are quite different. No state has yet permit gays and lesbians to marry (Hawaii and Alaska amended their constitutions prohibit homosexual marriage, according to their jurisdictions which approved it), while Florida is the only country in the European Union, all homosexuals are adoptions.
But in the dispute concerned the two is whether a broader definition of the legitimate family and social acceptance.
Doug Houghton, for example, one of the complainants in the case of Florida, wants desperately to adopt, 11 years, Oscar. It has enabled young people more and more because his father eight years ago, and said he, his son. They go together his three dogs at Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood very Oscar’s Puzzle on homework, and movies on Friday nights. But the purpose of legal adoption, says Houghton, is still missing.
“It’s sustainability,” he says. “It is in the process to respect the facts, if you deny that this is a genuine father-son relationship.”
Legal recognition is also something, Ed Balmelli and Mike Horgan, hoping to find, Massachusetts. “We love each other, we are planning for the correct use of the rest of our lives together, and we want married,” says Balmelli easy.
He has a great retirement after 22 years at Lucent Technologies. But it is unable to appoint Mr. Horgan as beneficiaries because there is no legal spouse.
And although the two have taken all legal measures that you know - by a civilian who celebrates the union in Vermont three years ago to the creation of health proxies, so she visits the hospital have rights If an accident would happen - it always worried not enough. “You should know that in a crisis situation that you will receive only the last piece of paper,” said Balmelli.
But for many social conservatives, marriage is by definition between a man and a woman. And some observers, including opponents of gay rights, even argued that courts should not be the ones who decide on fundamental notions like family.
“We believe that this would be an extreme example of judicial activism to a court in Massachusetts to redefine marriage,” says Peter Spriggs of the Family Research Council in Washington. “Or to a court in Florida on the will of people “Gay when adopting a ban of 26 years. These changes, he said, should be the responsibility of legislators.
Others argue that judicial intervention is often necessary. Until there is 1967 Supreme Court decision, in some states prescribed interrassisch marriage, for example.
The case of Massachusetts has cut international attention and religious groups, law professors and other states have focused on the roster of 26 council mandates for and against homosexual marriage. Some trial attorneys in Utah, Nebraska, South Dakota in Massachusetts and asked that their “deep source of friction between states and the federal government radically rewrite marriage and export of the controversy to other countries . ”
The case of Florida has received less attention, but if the Federal Court has declared unconstitutional the Florida prohibition, it would also have a considerable impact. “It is really about two things,” says the ACLU attorney Matthew Coles, said the case for the four applicants: whether the State to adopt laws moral approval of a lifestyle - one of its main justifications for the law - and if really good parents TRQ is available on such things as parents, sexual orientation or family.
The state has so far decided that in the best interest of children with married heterosexual couples. But it has often proved impossible. More than a quarter of Florida, Foster’s guidelines on children of single parents. Many are never accepted. “These men, these children a priceless gift absolute,” Coles said.