The European Court of Human Rights overturned French court rulings that
prevented a single lesbian woman from adopting a child; the move opens the
way for legal challenges in other European states, but does not oblige all
countries to allow gay adoption.
Thursday 01.24.08
http://www.time.com/time/world
Social and political conservatives have tended to be more cautious European
enthusiasts than their leftist peers. This week provided another example
why that’s the case. In a decision setting precedence not just across the
27-nation European Union, but indeed throughout the entire 47-member
Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights overturned French
court rulings that prevented a single lesbian woman from adopting a child.
The move, gay and lesbian groups say opens the way for legal challenges in
other European states with adoption laws similar to those of France — yet
falls well short of a blanket ruling that would oblige all countries to
allow adoption by homosexuals.
In a 10-7 vote, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Strasbourg
Tuesday that a plaintiff identified only as Emmanuelle B. had been the
victim of illegal discrimination when successive French authorities denied
her request to adopt a child in 1998. The court faulted French criticism
over “the lack of a paternal referent in the household”, and elsewhere said
the woman’s homosexuality had been “if not explicit, at least implicit” in
France’s rejection of her adoption request. The Court judged France had
violated the European Convention on Human Rights — to which France and the
other 46 Council of Europe members are signatories — based on its refusal
to allow a single lesbian adopt in a manner it allows straight singles to.
“French law allowed single parents to adopt a child, thereby opening up the
possibility for adoption by a single homosexual,” the judgment found. In
addition to opening the way for the 45 year-old nursery school teacher, who
has lived with her female partner for nearly 20 years, to see through her
desire to adopt, the Court also ordered France to pay Emmanuelle B. $14,600
in damages, and $21,210 in legal costs.
Gay rights organizations in France and across Europe hailed the ruling for
taking on one of the main kinds of discrimination homosexuals continue to
face. Some conservatives, however, were as equally outspoken in the
condemnation of the decision. Michèle Tabarot, a parliamentarian for the
ruling conservative Movement for a Popular Majority Party and the president
of France’s Superior Council on Adoption, reacted with charges “the judges
are over-stepping their role by going beyond what the law says, and by
imposing their conception” of justice. Tabarot also noted that if French
rules allowing singles to adopt children as a means of increasing the
number of potential homes for orphans, they weren’t intended to alter
official French views on gay parenting. “In France the parliament never
sought to open adoption to homosexuals,” she noted.
Indeed, Tuesday’s ruling, in many ways, represents a back door to equal
treatment starkly contrasting the more traditional attitudes and laws
prevalent in most of Europe. Franck Tanguy, spokesman for France’s
Association of Gay and Lesbian Parents, confirms “this ruling is a step in
the right direction”, in that it “requires countries that, like France,
allow singles to adopt children to treat unmarried homosexual and
heterosexual applicants in exactly the same manner.” Failure to do so in
any country with such legislation, Tanguy says, means they’d “find
themselves condemned again and again for discrimination by the many single
homosexuals who’d use this precedent to base a legal defense on”. However,
Tanguy regrets the ruling “won’t change anything in countries that don’t
allow any singles to adopt, nor force nations that don’t allow homosexual
couples to adopt to change their laws”.
There are currently nine European countries that permit gay and lesbian
couples to adopt children: Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Iceland,
Norway, the Netherlands, the U.K., and Sweden. Though a boon for single
homosexuals seeking to adopt children where unwed heterosexuals are allowed
to do so, Tanguy says Tuesday’s ruling may cause countries considering
allowing adoption by non-married straight couples to shelve such plans in
order to maintain the prohibition for gays and lesbians.
