When Gary Stocklaufer
went forward with the legal process to adopt a baby from a cousin who couldn't care for the child, he didn't really expect any problems. After all, he's a state-certified foster parent, and he has another adopted son. Baby Max's biological mother had already signed over parental rights to Stocklaufer and his wife, and they had been raising the li'l one for three months. But a family court judge ruled the couple aren't fit parents, and Max was taken away from them. Stocklaufer says he was discriminated against because he is obese--he weighs 500 pounds.
Check it: "'It's out-and-out discrimination,' Stocklaufer said. 'We don't have a
checkered past. We don't have a rap sheet, like a lot of people do. We
don't have any cases of abuse.'" Oh, and the judge happened to be the same judge who granted them adoption with their first son, Bobby.
Before anyone leaps in with "Oh, how can an obese parent do all the stuff necessary to raise a child, like run after a toddler, blah blah blah" I'll tell you that many parents with physical disabilities do just fine, so there. And I get real sick of fat discrimination, it's this messed up puritanical body-worship crap in our society. A few docs have offered free gastric bypass surgery to Stocklaufer. But why should he have to go through all that just to adopt a baby he already loves?
