Louisiana: Governor's Commission Won't Consider Adoption By Gay Couples

After a New Orleans-based LGBT rights organization pled their case to allowed unmarried partners to adopt in Louisiana, they were immediately shot down by one of Gov. Bobby Jindal's flacks.

"If anything, they (state marriage and adoption laws) should be strengthened,'' Rep. Frank Hoffman, R-West Monroe, a member of Gov. Bobby Jindal's 29-member Commission on Marriage and the Family, said. "Marriage is between one man and one woman, and we need to do all we can to support that." The commission viewed a 15-minute video titled "Families, Too,'' from the Forum for Equality, a New Orleans-based gay rights organization which supports laws that would allow unmarried heterosexual couples and gay couples to adopt children with each partner having parental control. A married couple, defined in Louisiana as a union of one man and one woman, and a single person of any gender can adopt. If a gay person enters into a relationship with a partner, that partner has no parental authority over the child, said Trey Williams, chief spokesman for the state Department of Social Services.

Most of the 29 members of Jindal's Commission on Marriage and the Family come from conservative and anti-gay organizations.