Motion Denied because You're an Idiot!

This Order Denying Motion for Incomprehensibility quotes the movie, Billy Madison.

See the judge's footnote in response to the "Defendant's Motion to Discharge Plaintiff's Response to Defendant's Response Opposing Objections to Discharge."

Cutting the Baby in Half

The Bible tells the account of King Solomon's wisdom in the passage about two women fighting over a baby. King Solomon, in all his wisdom, decided the best way to resolve the dispute was to cut the baby in half, giving each woman one half; the wise King knew this would prompt one woman's true love and motherhood to compel her to give up her rights to her baby to preserve the baby's safety while showing the true greed of the woman who only wanted the baby out of selfish reasons.

I sat in on a hearing this week that, as I saw more and more, made me realize that we as a society have allowed the baby to be cut in half.

Ohio law provides that a woman who wishes to give up her child for adoption must go before the court and formally relinquish her rights. This helps solidify the termination of her rights and prevent contesting the adoption later in the adoption process. While I believe this is a good preemptive measure, something about the whole hearing rubbed me the wrong way. I understand that there are times when the birth parents of a child can no longer physically care for that child. That child then needs other people to take the child into their family. What I don't understand is why it's ok for people to act irresponsibly and then run to a court to hand over the child, and all responsibility coming from that, simply because that person "isn't ready to become a parent." That person's irresponsible choices means that a child will have to go through emotional struggles that a child should never have to go through, knowing that someone had split that child's life in two--displaced that child's identity--simply because of their own selfish choices. In today's society, a person RARELY gives up a baby simply because they can't give the baby a good life. In today's society, most people make this kind of choice because they don't want to lose their own lifestyles. We can see evidence of this in the statistics of demographics who actually place a child for adoption. An African American young woman will rarely give her child up for adoption--even though she more often will fall in a lower income bracket than other women. Why is this so? Often times, the family steps in, taking a child as a precious addition to a family--not a curse, not an obstacle to success. The family will step in and hold a parent to his or her responsibilities and help where parental experiences and finances fall short. Some would argue that this doesn't give a child the best opportunity that child could have experienced. Some argue that this philosophy only drains our social welfare system. I disagree. This philosophy encourages people to start looking forward to the consequences of their own unwise actions. This philosophy leaves to families a social dynamic in which the state should not intervene. This allows a child to have the family that gave birth to the child--there's something a little distasteful about messing with God's choices of placement. This still leaves plenty of children who are orphaned by unfortunate events--acts of God--who are available to be adopted by good, loving families.

Maybe this view is just sparked by what I saw. I saw a slick, arrogant lawyer making thousands of dollars off the transfer of this baby. I saw a woman who sat with a disinterested look in her eyes; I saw her breathe a sigh of relief and smile at the end, knowing that she no longer had the financial burden of caring for a child she didn't want in the first place. The whole picture left a nasty, bitter taste in my mouth and made me want to run outside and get a breath of fresh air.

"Pasties"

I'm on a roll here. I really needed to blog. So, M and I are in Constitutional Law--class is about ready to start. Tonight we're covering more 1st Amendment issues with expressive conduct then moving to the public forum distinctions. Well, specifically, we're covering nude dancing as expressive conduct under the 1st Amendment.

Our class if full of fools. M and I are taking bets on how many times we will have to hear the words, "g-string," "pasties," and "nipples." I am planning on a full hour and a half of eye rolling.

My personal opinion, if you're going to an establishment, paying to see boobies, you probably should see boobies. If you're walking with your child on a public sidewalk, your child probably should not have to learn the term "g-string" or "pasty." Just my simple take on it.

House Bill 515

So, the wonderful Republicans in our state proposed a bill to redefine the list of eligible people who may adopt a child. This bill specifically excludes homosexuals and transgender people from adopting a child and from even having a child placed with them. From a legal standpoint, this bill is pure bullshit--logistically impossible to enforce.

You know Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"? Well, funny Bob Hagan introduced a "co-sponsorship" request for the house to add language to prohibit Republicans from adopting children. Yes, it's a spoof. Just to clarify--much like Jonathan Swift did not really mean for people to eat children.

Bob Hagan's request cites "evidence" from studies and from anectodal experience. He states that he has spoken to children adopted by GOP families who have said of their childhood that well, sometimes it was just plain boring.

hehe. Funny Bob Hagan.

Sanity

Goodness it's been forever since I've posted on here. I realized I'm starting to get my nervous twitch of my nose back with all the stress of work and school, so I figured I'd better start posting again to work out some stuff going through my crazy brain and to release some tension. I guess this post is more philosophical than legal. Being Ash Wednesday and all, I think I have that right.

So, I went to the mental health hearings at the mental hospital. My court has jurisdiction over the mental health commitments of crazy people. As I sat there, seeing one crazy (literally) person after another be "sentenced" to 90 more days in the loony bin to see if they can get straightened out, I started to look around, finding myself looking at their faces during the hearings. At one point, my heart about stopped from the conflict warring in my soul. These people had true, real, full emotions. While their minds were minds of children or, even worse, dangerous minds, their souls still held deep emotions that caused them deep grief and sadness over being committed as a ward of the state.

It has always been my philosophy that government should not be too restrictive on a society--one of its main purposes is to protect and to intervene in the lives of those who either are a threat to others or who cannot properly care for themselves in our society. With that in mind, I was stricken by the notion that intervention in these peoples' lives, while good for us "normal" people, may be life's most awful event for those deemed "mentally incompetent." They still feel, they still hate being held in a facility where noone comes to visit them, they still hate never being able to go anywhere or do anything they want to do. Although in my mind, I know it is right because they need care, something in my heart cringes at the idea that society's norm deems it just to lock these people up for doing absolutely nothing wrong. A guilty murderer has several appeals pending execution, each appeal laced with terms like "prisoner rights;" all the while, that prisoner can show no remorse while legal procedure protects their rights. However, a mentally incompetent person has very few people who will advocate for him. Few people really questions whether that mentally incompetent person has a lesser restrictive alternative. Noone takes the mental anguish of that mentally incompetent person into consideration when sentencing that person to time in a mental institution. A murderer's mental anguish, however, can lessen his sentence for committing an absolutely heinous crime.

I guess my real question is much more personal. Why would a God--this God in whom I believe and love--who created these people allow them to lose their mental capacity to function while still allowing them the emotions to deeply grieve the fact that they lost that mental capacity. How is that fair? Then, the only way for our society to actually do anything "morally right" toward these people, is for our society to basically lock them up in order to care for them. How is that just? In my mind, I know how it all works. But, for a couple brief moments, my heart about stopped because I saw a person, a crazy person who needed help, about ready to cry, eyes saddened and lips quivering, because, even though they had emotions to express their grief, they didn't have a competent enough mind to explain themselves. It saddened me deeply. It saddened me that law has to exist to deal with this.