And WHO is a Threat to Society?

Ohio couple loses custody of adopted kids

A couple accused of abusing their 11 adopted special-needs children by making them sleep in cages lost permanent custody Monday.

Huron County Juvenile Judge Timothy Cardwell awarded custody to the county, which had placed the children in foster care last fall after a social worker discovered the enclosures.

The judge ruled earlier that Michael and Sharen Gravelle had abused the children, and he said evidence showed there was a good chance they would repeat the behavior.

The couple have pleaded not guilty to several charges, including child endangerment, in a separate criminal case. They deny abusing the children, ages 1 to 15, and say the beds were necessary to protect the youngsters, who suffered from psychological and behavioral problems.

MEANWHILE, back here in Tennessee, I get an email from our local gay rights organization, Tennesse Equality Project, telling me that tomorrow for the second time a representative from my state, who previously co-sponsored anti-gay adoption legislation last year and was stopped, is attempting to introduce family bills that could AGAIN open the door to anti-gay and anti-family legislation.

The list and litany of TN legislative bills are HERE!

I just don't get these attacks. The fundamentalists are trying so desperately hard in state after state, even here in TN, to force women to have babies (even in cases of rape or incest), to keep people from having access to birth control, and to keep age-appropriate sex education out of the schools. Inevitably, all this will do is create a swell in the population. Now mind you, it won't be for the rich and affluent. They'll still have their special doctors with that special room in the back for that "special" procedure, or at least be able to afford the flight to a foreign country to make it "go away." The problem will be in the upsurge of an impoverished class becoming more impoverished and less able to pull themselves out of poverty. Without access to care and treatment, they are doomed to repeating the cycle.

Ask yourself: what purpose does this serve the wealthy, the affluent, the corporation, the politicians, and the preachers?

There's a helluva business to be made in the "faith-based initiative" organizations. Lots of funding and government support. With a huge poor population desperate for jobs, you have a labor force eager for any kind of wages, any kind of hours, any kind of situation. Cheap labor is a corporate moguls wet dream. Greedy politicians love desperate people too. They need scapegoats and boogeymen to attack. They are easily mollified and molded to believe any fear. These people desperate for a way out of their situation and a way to feed their families will even be willing to die in war, die for something they don't believe in, if it means their family will be taken care of.

Empty promises from an empty and soulless country. Riding on the back of fake morality and family values, we're allowing married couples to cage children but saying gay couples will destroy family and society.

In the words of our dear leader, I think we're doing "a heckuva job" without any help from the queers.