Republicans Unfit to Adopt

If Ohio State Sen. Robert Hagan's proposal becomes law, Republicans would be barred from adopting. Wednesday night, Hagan wrote a mock proposal to counter one introduced by State Rep. Ron Hood (R-Ashville) aimed at banning gay adoption.

Hagan said that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."

For his part, Rep. Hood's legislation, backed by eight other conservative Republican lawmakers, would prefer 22,000 Ohio children to languish in foster care than be adopted or fostered by gay parents.

What is it about Ohio and Florida? There's always trouble brewing. As we know, they've got lots of problems with their voting machines, lots of dead white people who vote and lots of living black people who aren't allowed to. But now they have something else in common: the irrational-- and probably insincere-- fear of gay adoption.

Coincidence? No, rather, as USA Today managed to observe between colorful pie charts, "the second front in the culture wars that began in 2004." These closely divided states barely handed W. the election in 2000 and 2004, and it was in large part due to the gay marriage issue on the ballot, which got the faithful out of their trailers and into the polls. This election year, however, they've got a new tactic-- stop the gays from helping unwanted children.

Actually, Florida's had that covered since 1977, thanks to the Anita Bryant Law. But this week Ohio joins 15 other states by introducing this kind of homophobic, Republican base-baiting measure. In fact, the backers have said that if it fails in the assembly, which it will, they will fight to get it on the fall ballot. Never mind the fact that there are virtually no credible studies that show adverse effects in gay adoption or parenting, Ron Hood wants to save the children of Ashville, Ohio!

And who is Ron Hood? He's a no neck, proudly flashing his 3 month old daughter on his "pro-family" website. He's endorsed by the NRA (they loved his voting against the proposal to have gun owners lock up firearms at home, and his voting to allow concealed weapons anywhere); he's against abortion and the RU-486 pill, anti-union, and he has voted to repeal the minimum wage in Ohio. His background is in construction. Needless to say, he won the Outstanding Young Conservative Award in 2000.

Ron Hood is up for election and he's learned the lesson of Ohio: Wedge Issue. He's playing hateful politics, and he's done nothing in his decade in the state house to help children, except ensure more of them are born to parents who don't want them, with the hope that they will grow up working for less than minimum wage before being shot with a concealed weapon.

Ron Hood would deny homes to children who need them, he would deny children to families who want them. He is the bastard spawn of the last two Rove campaigns. He is emblematic of the future of the shrewdly divisive republican party. He is the face of evil, minus the neck.

And his email is: [e-mail]

As a 43 year old lesbian mom in Ohio told the Cincinnati Enquirer, "It's like having someone put a KKK cross in your front yard. In someones opinion, you're not right. The crazy thing is they're the ones that have the hatred in their heart. They're they ones that have the fear in their heart. I'm just raising kids and paying taxes."

According to the latest ABC poll, most Americans believe allowing gays to adopt is a good idea. But what most Americans want never stops the cynical, political forces at work in Ohio during an election year. And, as we've learned the hard way, the rest of us can never afford to overlook what happens in Ohio.