Law Gone Wrong: Adoption in the Context of Same-Sex Relationships

Today’s post is the first in an occasional series entitled “Law Gone Wrong.”  The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course).  First up is Professor David Papke.  

As currently written, WIS. STAT.  48.92 – Effect of Adoption is a bad statute with unintended results.  The statute says that, with the exception of stepparent adoptions, an adoption ends all legal relationships between the adopted child and that child’s biological parents.  Put in blunter words, the rights of all biological parents are terminated when an adoption is finalized. This statute no doubt grows out a determination to normalize the lives of adopted children.  They are to have only one set of parents and to know just who those parents are.  On a deeper level, the statute reflects the possessive imperatives so central in the dominant American world view and extends it to adoptive children.

The great problem with the statute involves same-sex couples with children.

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Holloway and the Housing Code

The media have given ample attention to housing code violations in properties owned by Lee Holloway, Chairman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors.  According to one account, city inspectors have identified over 200 housing code violations in Holloway’s small, north-side apartment buildings.  The violations include roach and rodent infestations, faulty locks, missing smoke detectors, crumbling plaster, and malfunctioning plumbing.

Because Holloway is an announced candidate for the office of County Executive recently vacated by Governor Scott Walker, Holloway’s violations of the housing code are indeed newsworthy.  What’s more, aspects of Holloway’s dilemma are suggestive of the problems related to municipal housing codes, the most serious of which is lack of enforcement.

Why are the codes in Milwaukee and most urban areas so ineffectively enforced?

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Mayfair – Tumult in Wisconsin’s Shrine of Consumption

Much has been written and said about the tumult at the Mayfair Mall on January 2.  Commentators have argued the theft and destruction grew out of, among other things, the general rebelliousness of teenagers, deep-seated racial tensions, and/or colliding urban and suburban subcultures.  All these arguments have validity to them, but the very nature of the Mayfair Mall itself may also have played a role in the disturbances.

Mayfair epitomizes the modern shopping complex.  It has more sales per square foot than any other shopping complex in the metropolitan area.  A staggering 16 million shoppers pass through the mall annually, making Mayfair the busiest mall in all of Wisconsin.  With its flashing signage, swooping escalators, and elaborate display windows, Mayfair is a striking shrine devoted to late capitalism’s excessive consumption.

The central belief at Mayfair and hundreds of comparable shrines is that the purchase of goods and experiences will lead to personal happiness.

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