The Cellar - Bigoted Southern Judges and the public who loves them

This case breaks my heart. It's telling that both the seizure and contempt citation were overturned. Here's a picture.

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A 7-YEAR-OLD GIRL is at the center of a court battle that is equal parts gay rights struggle, jurisdictional quandary and legal ethics question.In less than a year of litigation, this single adoption matter has spawned two conflicting court orders, two contempt citations, a State Bar complaint, and a possible habeas action.

All this controversy swirls around the efforts of one Georgia woman, Elizabeth Hadaway, to adopt a young girl, Emma, who turned 7 this week. A judge sitting in Wilkinson County denied Hadaway’s adoption petition—at least in part because she was living with her same-sex partner—but then Hadaway convinced another judge in nearby Bibb County to give her custody.

The Wilkinson County judge has found Hadaway and her former attorney, Dana P. Johnson of Macon, in contempt and handed down jail sentences to the two. Since Johnson has withdrawn from representing Hadaway, Hadaway is getting help from Macon attorney Michael S. Winner and the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

For now, Emma is still in foster care under a Wilkinson County Juvenile Court order, with two apparently competing orders leaving state Department of Family and Children Services officials in a tough spot. But Hadaway’s new lawyers are working to enforce the Bibb County order, with plans to file a habeas action in Wilkinson County.

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Unmarried individuals can adopt in Georgia, noted Parrott, and, unlike in Florida, where Schultz resides, there’s no Georgia statute banning gays from adopting. But, wrote Parrott, Georgia law doesn’t provide for adoption by an unmarried couple, and a Georgia constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2004 precludes same-sex marriage.

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DFCS placed Emma with a foster family in Wilkinson County, and Hadaway met a caseworker at the family’s home to give up custody. The Wilkinson County Juvenile Court issued an order transferring legal custody to DFCS pending a final hearing in the Juvenile Court and forbidding further communications between Emma and Hadaway.

But Parrott wasn’t done with Hadaway and Johnson, Hadaway’s attorney. On March 23, he held both in contempt, ordering each to report to the Wilkinson County jail April 6 for 10 days—although he later granted each a bond.

Parrott also filed a complaint against Johnson with the State Bar in a March 28 letter to State Bar General Counsel William P. Smith III.

In his contempt order, Parrott said that Hadaway and Johnson had continued “the subterfuge and sham” begun in his court with their filing in the Bibb County court. Specifically, he complained that the Bibb County change of custody petition had failed to mention the adoption case before him and the date of the custody determination, both of which, he said, were required by Georgia statute.

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He also cited the potential for “long-term exposure to the homosexual parent’s lifestyle” as a reason for his ruling. “If the instant adoption is approved,” wrote Parrott, “inevitably the child will witness both directly and circumstantially the homosexual activity of [Hadaway] and her same-sex partner,” which he suggested was “undesirable conduct.”