Idaho court rules against gay dad in custody case

The Idaho supreme court on Tuesday ruled that sexual orientation should not be the basis for custody decisions, but it still denied a gay father's bid for custody. The ruling settles the custody case of Theron McGriff, a divorced Idaho Falls father who claimed that a parent's sexual orientation should be given no more weight when determining child custody than factors such as religion or health. McGriff appealed to the high court after a magistrate ruled in February 2002 he could no longer see his two young girls as long as he lived with his male partner. Bonneville County magistrate Mark Riddoch sided with McGriff's ex-wife, Shawn Weingartner, who said she feared the children would suffer backlash from the conservative, heavily Mormon town because of their father's sexuality and that she wanted McGriff to undergo counseling on how to present his lifestyle to the girls. In the 4-1 ruling, the high court agreed with the lower court's findings that the children were having difficulty handling joint custody arrangements and that Theron McGriff's refusal to communicate directly with Weingartner provided a sufficient basis to consider changing the custody arrangement. The court also found there was sufficient evidence to support the lower court's conclusion that Weingartner was best suited for sole legal and physical custody of the children. However, the court also ruled that "sexual orientation, in and of itself, cannot be the basis for awarding or removing custody" and that sexual orientation should only be considered in custodial cases if the orientation is shown to cause harm to the child, Justice Linda Copple Trout wrote for the majority. "This should not be the law of Idaho and is undesirable public policy," wrote the court's lone dissenter, Judge Wayne Kidwell.