You Be the Judge: Baby Veronica

[saxitoxin]

The final ruling in this season of the US Supreme Court: Adoptive Couple vs. Baby Girl

Dusten Brown is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who separated from his spouse before she gave birth to a girl. He refused to pay the mother child support and then sent her a text message saying he relinquished his custody rights. The mother then put the girl up for adoption, and the girl was adopted by a South Carolina couple. The Indian Child Welfare Act prohibits Native American children from being adopted to non-Native parents unless the Native parents have been informed and consented. The mother wasn't sure if the father was a Cherokee citizen so contacted the Cherokee government to check, but her attorney misspelled his first name and the Cherokee erroneously responded by saying he was not.

Learning of the adoption, the father sued under the Indian Child Welfare Act to have the daughter removed from the adopted couple and repatriated to Cherokee territory. The father is 2.4% Native-American (97.6% Caucasian) and his daughter is 1.2% Native-American (98.8% Caucasian).

The South Carolina Supreme Court ordered the daughter removed from the adopted parents and turned over to the father to be raised according to Cherokee tradition as required by the ICWA. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the ICWA doesn't apply because the father never had custody of the child in the first place and ordered the South Carolina Supreme Court to re-examine the case.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12 ... 9_8mj8.pdf

Majority (keep child with adoptive parents): Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer
Dissent (give child to father): Scalia, Sotomayer, Ginsberg, Kagan

[waauw]

dafuq, what a ridiculous law

[Roussallier]

I'd leave her with her adoptive parents. I don't get why US courts feel they need to follow 100+ year old laws completely out of context.

[DoomYoshi]

Just kill all fathers who refuse to pay child support.

[jonesthecurl]

I contacted the spirit world and asked King Solomon the Wise what should be done. He said "give 1.2% of the child to the father".

[Serbia]

I'd leave her with her adoptive parents. I don't get why US courts feel they need to follow 100+ year old laws completely out of context.

Indian Child Welfare Act

Congress passed ICWA in 1978 in response to the alarmingly high number of Indian children being removed from their homes by both public and private agencies. The intent of Congress under ICWA was to "protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families" (25 U.S.C. § 1902). ICWA sets federal requirements that apply to state child custody proceedings involving an Indian child who is a member of or eligible for membership in a federally recognized tribe.

Passed in 1978, and if my math is correct, that's less than 100 years.


Bollocks.

[saxitoxin]

the Chief of the Cherokee has issued a statement -

[notyou2]

Sell the child to the highest bidder to pay for all this legal mumbojumbo.

[greenoaks]

the child isn't Cherokee, it's Caucasian.

the Indian Child Welfare Act shouldn't apply.

[saxitoxin]

the child isn't Cherokee, it's Caucasian

That's a Pandora's Box. Based on blood quantum, Native Americans probably don't actually exist anymore. A majority of the Cherokee are less than 1/4 Native ancestry. The Cherokee abolished blood quantum and now say if you have any one relative who appeared on the 1924 census you're a Cherokee, even if that means you have less than 1% Native blood (on which basis, within the next 100 years, everyone in the U.S. will be a Cherokee).

There are multi-billion dollar casino operators headquartered in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo donating a lot of money to politicians to make sure all of the pretend tribes continue to exist, even when it gets to the point where their Chiefs are jolly, pale, fat, red-headed Presbyterian women who wear pant-suits (as in the case of the Mohegans) -->

[john9blue]

how about we don't make special laws for random people and just prevent these public and private agencies from taking children from their homes in the first place...

am i crazy here???

[PLAYER57832]

I'd leave her with her adoptive parents. I don't get why US courts feel they need to follow 100+ year old laws completely out of context.

I don't know enough about the specifics... this version varies considerably from what I have heard elsewhere and am not up to researching the truth of that particular case right now.

However, this law is by no means "100+ years". It actually stems from decades of modern adoptions. The government systematically took Native kids from their parents and gave them to white couples, particularly if the child "looked white". It was cultural genocide, continuing even into the 60's...and, in some cases has not actually ended today. Some nations/tribes, poor and without power, have only recently begun fighting back. First we took their land, then their minerals and then their children... So, well, I can understand the anger. That said, more than a few kids have been caught up in the battle and the US government is not up to the standards of Solomon.

[DoomYoshi]

the child isn't Cherokee, it's Caucasian

That's a Pandora's Box. Based on blood quantum, Native Americans probably don't actually exist anymore. A majority of the Cherokee are less than 1/4 Native ancestry. The Cherokee abolished blood quantum and now say if you have any one relative who appeared on the 1924 census you're a Cherokee, even if that means you have less than 1% Native blood (on which basis, within the next 100 years, everyone in the U.S. will be a Cherokee).

There are multi-billion dollar casino operators headquartered in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo donating a lot of money to politicians to make sure all of the pretend tribes continue to exist, even when it gets to the point where their Chiefs are jolly, pale, fat, red-headed Presbyterian women who wear pant-suits (as in the case of the Mohegans) -->

From that link:

Have you ever been talking to someone who mentioned that they were part Hispanic, part African-American, part Jewish, part Italian, part Korean, etc.? Have you ever asked them what percentage? Hopefully your answer is no, because if your answer is yes, then you're rude. It would be rude to ask someone what part Hispanic they are,

What the f*ck is wrong with you people? If I don't get the entire genealogy of someone back to the 16th Century, how am I supposed to know if they have sufficient noble blood to be worth talking to? I'm sorry, but if you are not European nobility whose name and title pre-dates the Reformation then quite frankly, you have no right to post, or even to exist. I know many European countries have laws forbidding the usage of noble-titles but isn't that why we came to the New World? So that I could be referred to as Duke of Bayern DoomYoshi instead of the much baser Mr. DoomYoshi?

f*ck, now I'm a Cherokee. Excuse me a moment while I drain all my blood - and its quanta.

[nietzsche]

I don't know my Cherokee percentage, help me out.

[DoomYoshi]

I don't know my Cherokee percentage, help me out.

32.

[rishaed]

The final ruling in this season of the US Supreme Court: Adoptive Couple vs. Baby Girl

Dusten Brown is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who separated from his spouse before she gave birth to a girl. He refused to pay the mother child support and then sent her a text message saying he relinquished his custody rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the ICWA doesn't apply because the father never had custody of the child in the first place and ordered the South Carolina Supreme Court to re-examine the case.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12 ... 9_8mj8.pdf

Majority (keep child with adoptive parents): Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer
Dissent (give child to father): Scalia, Sotomayer, Ginsberg, Kagan

He gave up custody rights, and thus has no say in who maintains custody of her. That is also State/Federal Law. I agree with the Supreme Court here.

[DoomYoshi]

I'd leave her with her adoptive parents. I don't get why US courts feel they need to follow 100+ year old laws completely out of context.

I don't understand why men feel the need to abandon their babies to the court system. Who is the criminal here... the court system?

[nietzsche]

I don't know my Cherokee percentage, help me out.

32.

How many slot machines is that? And where do I pick em up?

[jonesthecurl]

I don't know my Cherokee percentage, help me out.

32.

How many slot machines is that? And where do I pick em up?

Do you have a reservation, sir?

[DoomYoshi]

I don't know my Cherokee percentage, help me out.

32.

How many slot machines is that? And where do I pick em up?

66. They are currently being held at the Casino Club in Surabaya. I spoke to management for you, and they said you can take some pachinko machines if you prefer at an even exchange rate.

[Funkyterrance]

In a way it's good that they don't care what percentage you are since, as saxi pointed out, there will eventually be no one who is not part Native American, making all of this nonsense just go away.

[nietzsche]

I don't know my Cherokee percentage, help me out.

32.

How many slot machines is that? And where do I pick em up?

Do you have a reservation, sir?

That's what I'm trying to find out!! I don't have the app.