I read with interest your coverage of the Adoption Celebration. Even as the celebration was unfolding, I was on a program with Gayle Ruzicka talking about Division Child and Family Services Board Chairman Scott Clark's illegal, anti-child adoption and foster care policies.
Several times during the program, Ms. Ruzicka claimed (falsely, as she would know if she bothered with facts) that traditional "mommies and daddies" are "lining up" to adopt. Unfortunately, the only people "lining up" are innocent children, such as those who had to leave the Adoption Celebration without loving parents to care for them.Ms. Ruzicka and her ilk insist that their own irrational fears and prejudices supplant the judgment of child welfare professionals who do the difficult work of making an individualized, case-by-case determination of what is in the best interests of a particular child. It is these ideologues, not gay-rights advocates, who are using adoption policies to drive a political agenda. And unfortunately, but all too familiarly, it is the children who suffer as a result.
One could only hope that during this Adoption Month reason might prevail and Utah might return to the practices recommended by the Child Welfare League of America and followed in virtually every other state, returning the critical task of determining what is in a child's best interest to the professionals who are in the best position to make that determination on a case-by-case basis.
Stephen C. Clark
Legal director, ACLU of Utah
Salt Lake City