Court Opinion

ID: 9793611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:50:28.961269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:14.425699
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(dissenting) — In awarding custody of children, the primary or paramount consideration is the welfare of the children. Pierce v. Pierce, 52 Wash. 679, 101 P. 358 (1909); Thompson v. Thompson, 56 Wn.2d 244, 352 P.2d 179 (1960).
*633Granting that a change of circumstances needs to be found to modify a custody decree, such change of circumstances exists. In the finding at the time of the dissolution, the trial court specifically found that Sandra Schuster and Madeleine Isaacson were cohabiting and that such living arrangements were not in the best interest of the children.
This finding was made to insulate the children from the harmful atmosphere of living together in the same household where evidence of cohabitation would be apparent.
Since that time the respondents have in fact lived together in one household and have publicly espoused on radio, television and in lectures the superiority of the homosexual lifestyle. They have involved their children in these activities. This is a change of circumstances that requires the court to reexamine the correctness of its previous custody order.
In Gaylord v. Tacoma School Dist. 10, 88 Wn.2d 286, 559 P.2d 1340 (1977), this court held that a teacher was "guilty" of immorality because of his status of being a homosexual. Also, the evidence in the case did not involve any known homosexual acts. Nevertheless, this court assumed that his effectiveness as a teacher would be impaired. Mr. Gaylord was an excellent teacher. His superior's evaluation of his teaching effectiveness stated: "Mr. Gaylord continues his high standards and thorough teaching performance. He is both a teacher and student in his field."
In regard to the effect of Mr. Gaylord's status as a homosexual, the opinion stated at pages 298-99:
It is important to remember that Gaylord's homosexual conduct must be considered in the context of his position of teaching high school students. Such students could treat the retention of the high school teacher by the school board as indicating adult approval of his homosexuality. It would be unreasonable to assume as a matter of law a teacher's ability to perform as a teacher required to teach principles of morality (RCW 28A.67-.110) is not impaired and creates no danger of encouraging expression of approval and of imitation. Likewise to *634say that school directors must wait for prior specific overt expression of homosexual conduct before they act to prevent harm from one who chooses to remain "erotically attracted to a notable degree towards persons of his own sex and is psychologically, if not actually disposed to engage in sexual activity prompted by this attraction" is to ask the school directors to take an unacceptable risk in discharging their fiduciary responsibility of managing the affairs of the school district.
In the instant case, Sandra Schuster and Madeleine Isaacson were and are living together in a homosexual relationship. The respondents are living together with their children as a family unit.
The respondents have been engaged in publicizing the homosexual cause in general and their lesbian relationship. They have given a series of lectures and granted interviews where they discussed their own homosexual lifestyle. The children have accompanied respondents at some of these engagements, and the respondents and their children participated in making a movie which depicts the lifestyle of two families bound together by homosexual parents.
They have advertised in a brochure entitled "The Gay Family: A Valid Life-Style?" in which they offered interested persons a booklet, "Love is for All", and information about a film entitled "Sandy and Madeleine's Family", and also offer to make personal appearances. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle with the headline "The Lesbian Love of Two Mothers" explained the appearance of the two women visiting in the Bay Area publicizing their film.
From such publicizing it can be readily seen that they are not content to pursue their lifestyle but are also using their children for the purpose of advocating and proselytizing that style.
I am unable to understand how the court can declare that a school teacher who only admitted to his preference as a homosexual and did not engage in any overt act, is guilty of immorality, and yet, in the instant case, can find perfectly moral the conduct of the respondents.
*635The State does have an interest in the matter of heterosexual acts versus homosexual acts. Professors J. Harvie Wilkinson III and G. Edward White, writing in 62 Cornell L. Rev. 563, 595-96 (1977), in an article entitled "Constitutional Protection for Personal Lifestyles", state that:
[t]he most threatening aspect of homosexuality is its potential to become a viable alternative to heterosexual intimacy. This argument is premised upon the belief that the practice of an alternative mode of sexual relations will inimically affect the predominant mode. Thus, any recognition of a constitutional right to practice homosexuality would undermine the value of heterosexuality and the institutions and practices — conventional marriage and childrearing — associated with it.
This state concern, in our view, should not be minimized. The nuclear, heterosexual family is charged with several of society's most essential functions. It has served as an important means of educating the young; it has often provided economic support and psychological comfort to family members; and it has operated as the unit upon which basic governmental policies in such matters as taxation, conscription, and inheritance have been based. Family life has been a central unifying experience throughout American society. Preserving the strength of this basic, organic unit is a central and legitimate end of the police power. The state ought to be concerned that if allegiance to traditional family arrangements declines, society as a whole may well suffer.
Disapproving sexual conduct that might threaten traditional family life is arguably a means related to this end. Criminal law provides perhaps the strongest vehicle for expressing such disapproval. On the other hand, it is not the only vehicle for enforcing conventional mores; community disapproval of errant behavior is arguably a more potent enforcement mechanism than the law. Moreover, the criminal law's effectiveness will be reduced if social practices and attitudes run counter to its underlying assumptions. Yet criminalization, whatever its lack of perfection as a deterrent, is a dramatic symbol of social disapprobation. Decriminalization means, quite literally, the removal of disapproval, the recasting of the state's posture as one of neutrality.
*636In seeking to regulate homosexuality, the state takes as a basic premise that social and legal attitudes play an important and interdependent role in the individual's formation of his or her sexual destiny. A shift on the part of the law from opposition to neutrality arguably makes homosexuality appear a more acceptable sexual lifestyle, particularly to younger persons whose sexual preferences are as yet unformed. Young people form their sexual identity partly on the basis of models they see in society. If homosexual behavior is legalized, and thus partly legitimized, an adolescent may question whether he or she should "choose" heterosexuality. At the time their sexual feelings begin to develop, many young people have more interests in common with members of their own sex; sexual attraction rather than genuine interest often first draws adolescents to members of the opposite sex. If society accorded more legitimacy to expressions of homosexual attraction, attachment to the opposite sex might be postponed or diverted for some time, perhaps until after the establishment of sexual patterns that would hamper development of traditional heterosexual family relationships. For those persons who eventually choose the heterosexual model, the existence of conflicting models might provide further sexual tension destructive to the traditional marital unit.
(Footnotes omitted.) These arguments were endorsed by one of the authors, Professor Wilkinson.
The Superior Court of New Jersey held in In re J.S. & C., 129 N.J. Super. 486, 324 A.2d 90 (1974), that granting a father, who was deeply involved in the movement to further homosexuality, the right to unrestricted visitation would not be in the best interest of the children, and that such visitation right should extend to the daytime hours only. And in Chaffin v. Frye, 45 Cal. App. 3d 39, 119 Cal. Rptr. 22 (1975), where a mother was a homosexual living with a female companion in the same apartment that the children would occupy, the trial court's implied finding that an award of custody to the mother would be detrimental to the children was sustained.
In this case the trial court found, in the original trial, that both parents were fit and proper persons to have the *637custody of the children. The fathers have since remarried and have established good homes. Where should the scale of justice be tipped? In favor of the mothers who are living in a lesbian relationship? Or on the side of the fathers whose lifestyles and relationships are considered normal and moral?
On the state of this record, the primary and paramount consideration in awarding the children to a parent is the welfare of the children. I would hold that the mothers are not morally fit to have the custody of the children, and I would award the children to the fathers.
Wright, C.J., and Hamilton, J., concur with Rosellini, J.
Petition for rehearing denied February 28, 1979.