Far-right Utah judge reverses decision taking foster child from lesbian couple, but fight isn't over

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Friday November 13, 2015 · 10:28 AM PST

2015/11/13 · 10:28

Utah Seventh District Juvenile Court Judge Scott Johansen has reversed his own court order that took a 9-month-old female foster child away from Rebecca Pierce and April Hoagland, a married couple from the Price, Utah area. However, the fight isn’t quite over:

A Utah judge on Friday reversed his order to take a foster child away from a same-sex couple because of their sexual orientation, state officials said.

The judge, Scott N. Johansen of Juvenile Court, had issued an order on Tuesday saying that the child, a 9-month-old girl, had to be removed from the home of a lesbian couple by the end of the day next Tuesday, and placed with a heterosexual couple.

[...]

Judge Johansen eliminated a line saying that “it is not in the best interest of children to be raised by same-sex couples,” and another ordering the child removed and placed with a heterosexual couple. But the new order still says, “The court cited a concern that research has shown that children are more emotionally and mentally stable when raised by a mother and father in the same home.” And there is still a Dec. 4 hearing scheduled on the best interests of the child.

Judge Scott Johansen is one of the worst judges, if not the worst judge, in America. In fact, this isn’t the first major controversy involving Johansen. As a fellow DailyKos writer pointed out recently, Johansen slapped a 16-year-old boy at the Price, Utah courthouse in 1997, and, earlier this year, he also ordered the mother of a 13-year-old daughter to cut the daughter’s ponytail off in open court.

What Johansen originally did to Pierce and Hoagland was absolutely disgusting. He issued a court order that did not reflect the rule of law or common sense, but rather his own absurd, far-right opinion that simply being of the same sex should disqualify a couple from being foster parents. Also, regarding the “research” that claims that “children are more emotionally and mentally stable” when raised by a heterosexual couple, I’ve not seen a single piece of research that either proves or claims that, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the “research” that Johansen cited is from a right-wing religious group of some kind that is actively engaged in anti-LGBT bigotry.

I hope that Pierce and Hoagland are able to keep their foster child.

Friday, Nov 13, 2015 · 6:34:03 PM +00:00 · DownstateDemocrat

This is a redundant diary, as fellow DailyKos writer Jen Hayden has written this piece on this story.

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Far-right Utah judge reverses decision taking foster child from lesbian couple, but fight isn't over

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