Ohio Moves to Bar Republicans from Adopting Children

One of my students just sent me a wonderful article. Apparently, Ohio State Senator Robert F. Hagan -- a member of the Ohio legislature for over 15 years and the current Assistant Minority Whip -- has proposed legislation that would "ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents." According to the article from www.azcentral.com, Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption. "We need to see what we are doing," said Hagan, who called Hood's proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill "homophobic." Hood's bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender. To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities." However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims. Just as "Hood had no scientific evidence" to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said. For the full article, go to http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/0223gop-adoption23-ON.html.