The downfall of America, part 8,173?

“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. “They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’”…

Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness.

“We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” she said…

“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Isn’t this just federalism at work? Most states either expressly allow same-sex adoptions or have no explicit provision prohibiting them, in which case State’s hands are tied. They could retain the “mother/father” framework, I guess, but in that case you’re going to end up with some male names on the “mother” line and some female names on the “father” line. It makes more sense to go to a “parent/parent” framework. Or, I suppose, we could do the anti-federalist thing and push for a federal law banning gay adoptions, although (a) it wouldn’t pass and (b) it would reduce the pool of parents who are waiting to adopt, which would in turn make this problem that much worse. If you’re going to tolerate gay adoption — and I think most (but not all) conservatives do, if only because they find it preferable to abortion — then why not make the paperwork reflect that?

On a somewhat but not entirely unrelated note, via Breitbart.tv, here’s Andrew Breitbart talking about the “big ol’ gay party” he’s planning to throw for gay conservatives at CPAC.