Last Thursday, I asked, “Does having lesbian moms—or other LGBT parents—affect one’s character?” Lawyer Nancy Polikoff left a comment that I thought was worth promoting up into a post. She mentioned that in the 1979 lawsuit M.P. v. S.P., an appeals court reversed a lower court ruling that had removed custody of children from their mother because she was a lesbian. In its reversal, the appeals court made the following observation:
If defendant retains custody, it may be that because the community is intolerant of her differences these girls may sometimes have to bear themselves with greater than ordinary fortitude. But this does not necessarily portend that their moral welfare or safety will be jeopardized. It is just as reasonable to expect that they will emerge better equipped to search out their own standards of right and wrong, better able to perceive that the majority is not always correct in its moral judgments, and better able to understand the importance of conforming their beliefs to the requirements of reason and tested knowledge, not the constraints of currently popular sentiment or prejudice.
“Yes, that’s right, 1979,” Polikoff said.
“Lesbian moms: Building character since 1979.” I want a t-shirt.