An April 22 article in The Gazette of Colorado Springs by Ed Sealover featured the misleading headline “Ritter backs gay adoption bill” for a report about House Bill 1330, the second-parent adoption measure awaiting Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter's signature. As Colorado Media Matters has noted, the characterization of HB 1330, which makes no direct reference to same-sex adoption, as a “gay adoption bill” echoes a talking point of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. Furthermore, an April 21 Gazette editorial about the United States Supreme Court's decision to uphold the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act cited John Eastman of the Claremont Institute, but failed to identify him as a former law clerk to conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and failed to note that the Claremont Institute is a conservative think tank.

Regarding HB 1330, the Gazette article noted, “Religious organizations say the bill moves society from a family structure that has worked well for centuries, and adoption groups argue it reduces the courts' oversight abilities and allows children to be moved around between adults like property”:

The Catholic Conference of Colorado and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson have asked followers to e-mail and call the first-year Democratic governor to urge a veto. Colorado Springs Republican Sen. Dave Schultheis, who received similar communication when the bill passed through the Senate, said the number of people writing to legislators is far larger than the amount that flooded legislators with pleas before Ritter vetoed a pro-union bill this year.

But Ritter said his support of the legislation stems from his 12 years as Denver district attorney, where he saw cases involving children who came from one-parent or broken families.

He said he has “far less problems” than others do with the issue of gay or lesbian adoption.

“My preference here is to do, in a public policy way, things that are right by kids,” Ritter said. “I really believe that a two-parent adoption bill has the ability to do that broadly.”

The Gazette article noted that "[c]urrent state law allows any married couple or single person to adopt a child but does not permit the unmarried partner of an adopter to sign onto the contract." But it failed to mention, as The Denver Post noted in a March 21 editorial, that “Colorado law already permits gay men and lesbians to adopt, as single parents”. The Post editorial further noted, “Because HB 1330 would only come into play when a child already had one, but only one, legal parent, it would thus only allow a same-sex partner to adopt as a second parent when a child is already in the care of that couple.”

In the editorial about the Supreme Court's abortion decision, The Gazette stated, “On an emotional level, it is difficult to be unhappy with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.” The editorial further stated:

Congress passed the law in response to a 2000 high court decision, Stenberg v. Carhart, that struck down a similar Nebraska law. As Kennedy noted, Congress took into account the court's objections to the Nebraska law and crafted a law designed to address the concerns expressed in Stenberg. Therefore, opponents had not proved that the law, “is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to an abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception.”

In the kind of angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin reasoning that has become the norm in abortion rulings since Roe v. Wade in 1973 discovered a theretofore undetectable constitutional right to abortion (as opposed to each state deciding the matter), this was defensible enough. Roe v. Wade never said abortion could not be regulated after the first trimester, and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case affirmed that abortions could be regulated or banned so long as exceptions were made to protect the life or health of the mother.

As Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a brief concurrence also signed by Justice Antonin Scalia, however, a possibly more important constitutional question, “whether the Act constitutes a permissible exercise of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause is not before the Court. The parties did not raise or brief that issue; it is outside the question presented; and the lower courts did not address it.”

That's too bad. The question is perfectly valid. The Constitution enumerated certain powers given to Congress, leaving all other powers to the states and the people. Traditionally, as constitutional scholar Roger Pilon at the libertarian Cato Institute and John Eastman of Chapman University and the Claremont Institute reminded us, the general police power, under which abortion had traditionally been regulated, resided in the states -- until Congress began expanding the meaning of the commerce clause in the 1930s to give it power to regulate anything and everything that might remotely or even theoretically affect interstate commerce, and the courts let Congress get away with it.

While The Gazette identified the Cato Institute as “libertarian,” the editorial failed to note that the Claremont Institute is a conservative think tank or that Eastman formerly was clerk for the conservative Thomas. That information would have made it clear that The Gazette cited only conservative voices to support its argument. As the institute's website states, “The mission of the Claremont Institute is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life”:

To recover the founding principles in our political life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong defense.

The Institute's work is only beginning. Today, our state and federal governments spend vast and increasing sums of public money for less and less good. The public sector continues to grow at the expense of the private. Regulations intrude into every corner of our lives. Schools no longer perform. Police and courts no longer protect. Good businesses are being driven to extinction by excessive and discriminatory controls, and as a result good jobs continue to disappear. Dependence grows and opportunity wanes with each passing year.

Furthermore, the group's website lists right-wing radio host and former Republican Colorado Senate president John Andrews as “a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute.” Andrews' page on the website further notes that he is “chairman of Backbone America, a national citizens alliance" that is “based in Colorado and sponsored by the Claremont Institute.”