A child-advocacy organization has filed a brief with the Utah Supreme Court opposing the proposed adoption of six children by a polygamist couple - arguing that fit parents should teach conformity to law and that polygamy is an unhealthy home environment.

Rosalind J. McGee, executive director of the non-profit Utah Children organization, contends that "to be morally fit, potential adoptive parents must, by definition, express and teach adherence to lawful authority and conform their conduct to standards of lawful behavior. It is undisputed that petitioners openly practice and teach polygamy in their home in violation of Utah law and constitutional policy."Her statewide organization urges the Utah Supreme Court to affirm a decision of the district court dismissing the adoption petition of the polygamist couple on the grounds that they do not qualify as adoptive parents by reason of their polygamist practices.

Fifth Circuit Judge Dean Conder ruled in December that a Hildale, Washington County, couple could not adopt the children because "polygamy is a crime and the practice of polygamy constitutes immoral conduct."

Vaughn and Sharane Fischer want to adopt the six children of Brenda Johanson Thornton, who died of cancer two months after becoming Fischer's third wife. The children are ages 5 to 19. Thornton had signed over the custody of the children to the Fischers before her death and had requested they legally adopt her children.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah recently filed a brief on behalf of the Fischers, stating that polygamy should not be the sole factor in determining fitness of parents.

But McGee believes that the state has a compelling interest in placing adoptive children outside the polygamist culture in order to promote their social, emotional and psychological well-being.

She refers to a study of the polygamist culture published by Jesse Embry in 1987 that states polygamist families experience "unique problems." Women and children face difficulty living in a setting where the "limited resources of one man must be divided among several families and there is a constant struggle to maintain peace among several households."

"Children of both sexes are generally deprived of any childhood relationship with their father, and young girls are given in marriage at a very tender age to men much older than they," McGee said.

Another concern is that women hold an inferior place in the social order of polygamist families and are considered "property" of their husbands and are expected to be completely submissive to them.

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Four of the children in the case are young girls, McGee said.

The Utah Children brief states that the Utah adoption statute requires the court to determine, before granting an adoption petition, that the petitioners are morally fit to supervise the training of adopted children. Polygamist parents are not morally fit, McGee said.

The ACLU is challenging the constitutionality of the law outlawing polygamy, arguing that if polygamy is a threat, it should be enforced vigorously in Utah - but is not.

The issue is scheduled for debate in the high court June 12.

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