Stop the Honorable Charles Z. Smith |
July 26, 2000 Honorable Charles Z. Smith Re: Resolution urging judges to discontinue Dear Justice Smith: A few years ago, you wrote a concurring opinion in Guard v. Beeston (1997) 940 P.2d 642, 668, in which you expressed your concern "over the perpetuation of the offensive term ‘illegitimate’ in referring to a child born to parents not married to each other." You suggested that other words can convey the same meaning but in a way that is less demeaning to children. We agree. It was your leadership on this issue which prompted the American Association for Single People to launch a national Stop the Stigma Campaign and to designate you as our "judicial champion" on this issue. The purpose of our campaign is to educate lawmakers, judges, and other elected officials about this linguistic problem and to encourage them to use neutral and objective language, such as "non-marital children" or "children born to unmarried parents" in judicial opinions or legislative statutes. As a part of our campaign, I have written to the American Judges Association to alert their board members about this problem. Enclosed is a letter I received from Judge Ira J. Raab, chair of that organization’s resolutions committee. He indicated that his committee would consider passing an appropriate resolution to address this issue if such a resolution were submitted to him by a member of the judiciary. The purpose of this letter is to request you to submit such a resolution to the resolutions committee of the American Judges Association. I have enclosed a draft resolution for your review. Should you decide to honor this request, please feel free to modify the resolution in any way you see fit. Because there is a time deadline for having such a resolution considered by the committee at its next meeting, I would be grateful if you could notify me as soon as possible if you are unable to submit the resolution as requested. If you do send a resolution to Judge Raab, please send us a copy along with a copy of your cover letter so that we may keep our files current. Again, thank you for your leadership on this issue. Yours truly, Thomas F. Coleman Back to Stigma
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