Lesbian Mother in Alabama Custody Case Mulls Appeal
Associated
Press, March 28, 2002
By Leon Drouin Keith, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP)—Speaking out for the first time, a mother who lost an
Alabama child-custody case because of her homosexuality said she is still
deciding whether to go to the nation’s highest court to try to get her
children back.
"Presuming that I am an unfit parent simply based on whom I choose to
love is wrong," said Dawn Huber, 42, of Los Angeles, whose bid for
custody of her three children was unanimously rejected in February by the
Alabama Supreme Court.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has drawn protests and criticism from gay
rights groups, clergy and the City Council in Birmingham, Ala., for his
concurring legal opinion that homosexuality "an inherent evil" and a
criminal act that "is destructive to a basic building block of society—the
family."
"If a person openly engages in such a practice, that fact alone would
render him or her an unfit parent," Moore wrote.
Huber appeared at a Los Angeles press conference with attorney Gloria
Allred to denounce the ruling.
"I am not a deviant, nor am I evil," she said. "I am the one
who helped my children prepare for their first Holy Communions. I am the one
the principal of their parochial school asked to serve as the secretary of the
PTA."
Huber hasn’t decided whether to take on the expense of appealing the case
to the U.S. Supreme Court. That job would fall to her attorney in Alabama, not
Los Angeles-based Allred, who sent a letter to President Bush urging him to
preclude Moore from consideration for any federal judicial post.
Allred also called on the California Republican Assembly, a grassroots GOP
group, to withdraw its 1995 commendation of Moore. But CRA President Dick
Mountjoy said, "We wouldn’t even think of it."
"I believe that he’s right in the decision," said Mountjoy, a
former state senator. "His moral values are what America’s all
about."
Moore’s spokesman, Scott Barnett, did not return telephone calls seeking
comment.
Moore publicly defended his concurring opinion for the first time Saturday,
saying he is not biased against homosexuals.
"A person is never biased by abiding by the law," he said.
"The law in Alabama says that sodomy is against the law."
Attorney John Durward, who represents the father of the children in
Alabama, said Moore’s concurring opinion did not reflect the opinions of the
entire Alabama Supreme Court and "is not the central issue in this
case."
Huber’s attorneys did not ask the court to reconsider its ruling, and the
time to make that request has passed, Durward said.
"As far as we’re concerned, the case is over," he said.
Durward said the father has declined interviews and kept a low profile to
protect the children. But Huber said she decided to speak publicly because her
children asked her to do so.
Huber and her female companion of seven years are registered as domestic
partners in the state of California. Her ex-husband left California for
Alabama before they divorced in 1992.
Huber was initially given custody of their children, now 18, 17 and 15. But
she said that in 1996, at the request of her children, she asked a California
court to grant custody to their father.
In 1999—again at her children’s request—Huber sought to regain
custody.
A circuit judge in Jefferson County, Ala., ruled for the father, but the
Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled 4-1 for the mother in June 2001. The
appeals court said the father had a history of calling the mother vulgar names
in front of the children and of hitting the children.
The appeals court also said there was no indication the mother’s
homosexual relationship would be detrimental to the children.
The Alabama Supreme Court said the appeals court impermissibly reweighed
the evidence in the case and that the circuit judge was in a better position
to evaluate the claims of abuse.
Huber said her children, who visit her during summer and spring breaks from
school, want to stay with her. Her oldest child has not yet moved to
California because Alabama law considers 19 to be the age of adulthood, Huber
said.
The Birmingham City Council denounced Moore’s concurring opinion in a
resolution approved last Thursday—the same day the state’s Judicial
Inquiry Commission dismissed a bias complaint against the justice filed by a
gay rights group.
Moore is known as "Alabama’s Ten Commandments judge" because of
his fight to keep a handmade plaque of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom
when he was a judge in Gadsden and his decision to place a washing
machine-size monument of the Ten Commandments in the State Judicial Building
after he became chief justice last year.
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