According to one political group's reasoning during a recent anti-gay campaign, “[Heterosexual] marriage protects children's physical and mental health, providing them with a deep measure of emotional and financial security.”
Try to explain that to Heather, 12, William, 9, and 7-year-old Donnie, who was born with methamphetamine in his blood.
These Orange County children have a married mother and father, but government officials decided it was in the best interests of the kids to permanently remove them from that family and–oh, my, will the world come to an end?–allow them to be raised by one woman.
What kind of family created these children? The kids' mother, Rachel, is a methamphetamine, marijuana and alcohol addict. She continued to consume meth during at least one of her pregnancies even though she knew it was incredibly harmful to her offspring. She also didn't bother with any prenatal care. Her fitness as a mother was further colored by a habit of severely beating all of her children, according to court records. Their father, Wayne, is a violent, convicted felon. He's not been able to suppress his own sexual desires for his daughter, acts her mother observed but did not report to law enforcement authorities. In full view of the kids, he punched, strangled and threatened their mother's life, according to court records. Time and again, this couple communicated with each other by yelling and breaking things.
Interviewed by county officials, the kids told of their troubled lives and terrible nightmares.
Over Rachel's objections, Orange County Juvenile Court authorities
eventually ordered the children placed with their maternal grandmother.
But Rachel claimed that the kids secretly wanted to live with her. She
also claimed that her mother had inappropriately blocked visitations.
This week, a California Court of Appeal
based in Santa Ana considered Rachel's appeal. The justices found no
evidence to support the mother's position. Indeed, they stated there is
overwhelming evidence that the kids want to be raised by their
grandmother and that the new environment is "loving."
(In
December, all of the kids refused a social worker's attempt to
facilitate a monitored visit with their mother. They
said they feared their mother would try to keep them.)
The
appellate court determined that there was "no error" by removing the
kids from their parents and placing them with their grandmother.
(All of the names are pseudonyms.)
--R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.