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Lawless
All About Brad!
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Registered: Jun 2003
Local time: 01:11 AM
Location: Freezing in Colorado
Posts: 27144
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POSTED: 4:41 p.m. EDT, October 17, 2006
LONDON, England (AP) -- Madonna said Tuesday she had acted according to the law in taking custody of a 1-year-old Malawian boy, responding for the first time to the fierce debate about the legality and morality of the planned adoption.
The pop star's statement came after she was united with David Banda at her London mansion. Madonna said she hopes to make the adoption permanent following an 18-month evaluation period, imposed by Malawi authorities.
"We have gone about the adoption procedure according to the law, like anyone else who adopts a child. Reports to the contrary are totally inaccurate," Madonna said in the statement, issued via e-mail.
Madonna said she and her husband began the adoption process "many months prior to our trip to Malawi," but she had not disclosed their intentions because she wished to keep the matter private. As child-protection groups challenged Madonna's custody order, photographers swarmed outside the singer's home and bloggers and editorial-writers weighed in, that appeared a vain hope.
"After learning that there were over 1 million orphans in Malawi, it was my wish to open up our home and help one child escape an extreme life of hardship, poverty and in many cases death, as well as expand our family," Madonna said.
"This was not a decision or commitment that my family or I take lightly," she added. (Read the entire letter, in the following post.)
David, who has spent most of his life in an orphanage in poverty-stricken Malawi, arrived before dawn at Heathrow Airport aboard a British Airways flight from Johannesburg, South Africa. He was bundled into a waiting Mercedes minivan in the arms of an aide, surrounded by airport officials and armed police officers.
Photographers, reporters and camera crews clustered in the street as the van arrived at the brick Victorian town house near London's Hyde Park that Madonna, 48, shares with her husband -- the director Guy Ritchie -- daughter Lourdes, 9, and son Rocco, 6. Madonna also has a house in the English countryside and a home in Los Angeles.
Last week, Malawi's High Court granted Madonna and Ritchie an interim adoption order giving them custody of the boy for 18 months. Madonna's New York-based publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said that during that time, the couple would be "evaluated by the courts of Malawi per the tribal customs of the country."
The order waived a Malawian law requiring would-be parents to live in the country for a year while social welfare officers investigate their ability to care for a child.
Human rights and child protection groups were challenging the custody order in court in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe. They said they wanted to ensure that child-protection regulations were not swept aside to benefit a singer who has been generous to Malawi.
Madonna's charity, Raising Malawi, is setting up an orphanage for up to 4,000 children, and the singer has said she wants to raise at least $3 million for programs to support AIDS orphans. (TIME.com: Madonna's Malawi project)
Madonna said in the statement she had been "overwhelmed and inspired" by her trip to Malawi and hoped it would help focus attention on the needs of children in Africa.
"From poverty to easy street" said a headline in The Times newspaper -- but others painted a more troubled picture of young David's journey.
The Independent dubbed the saga "Madonna and child: a morality tale," and noted in an editorial that "reports that Madonna chose the child from a selection of orphans presented to her make the whole affair sound worryingly like a commercial process."
Max Clifford, a celebrity publicist, said it was up to Madonna and Ritchie to "convince people that what they've done is right and that the way they've gone about it is right."
Justin Dzonzi, a lawyer for a coalition of Malawian human rights and child advocacy organizations, said his group was concerned that no one explained the implications of the adoption to the child's father, Yohame Banda. David's mother died after giving birth, and the father -- a farmer -- had put his son in an orphanage.
Banda on Tuesday accused the rights groups of being "jealous of my son."
"What's their interest? I want David to have a bright future, not to live in this poverty," he told The Associated Press in his village, Lipunga, 80 miles from the Malawian capital.
Malawian government officials said they had no objection to the adoption.
Some children's advocates said the adoption brought welcome attention to the plight of millions of impoverished children in sub-Saharan Africa. The AIDS pandemic has left almost 1 million children orphaned in Malawi alone, according to the National AIDS Commission.
Madonna joins a growing list of celebrities -- including Mia Farrow, Angelina Jolie and Meg Ryan -- who have adopted children from developing countries.
Jonathan Pearce, director of the adoption-support group Adoption U.K., said celebrity adoption brought attention to the need for adoption -- but could give the impression adopting a child was a simple process.
"I am sure there is a perception that you can just go out there and purchase a child," he said. "Obviously that is not a good way to portray adoption."
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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10-17-2006 10:34 PM
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mystic
Evil Queen
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Registered: Apr 2003
Local time: 03:11 AM
Location: In my castle
Posts: 13357
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Adopting a foster care child in the states isnt as easy as people think it is. No adoption from the states is easy.
Lets not forget that many people have put their children up for adoption only to come back years later to get them back...and the court ALLOWED it!
So, in this country, one can adopt and raise a child for a few years and then have that child stripped from them when the biological family changes their mind. (baby Richard come to mind??)
Foster care is worse...it takes years to have the courts strip away parental rights because they give that parent or parents the time to try and fix their lives first. A foster parent cannot talk adoption until the parental rights are taken, and if they do talk about adoption, the court can take the child and place them in another foster home.
Adoption from another country is easier, and that is why people do it.
if our courts would stop being so lenient on crappy parents or parents that abandon and come back, then more kids from the states would be adopted by good families.
So what??...she adopted a kid privately.
Unlike that ignorant reporter, her and her husband dont owe people anything about their adoption and how they went about it.
Trust me, if Madonna wanted a kid for some mystical underlying reason (as the reporters would make people believe), she could have one of her own. I doubt she went about it the wrong way.
As for her getting money for the pictures, I dont always agree with that, but all celebs in cases like this pose and request money.
As for Jolie...she was able to do it quietly because she was out of the country for sometime. However, when she did come back...the reporters were there!
I cant believe this is "breaking" news in the world. How pathetic has this world become that this story is worthy of huge news. 
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10-18-2006 09:39 PM
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HECK!
Bluto
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Registered: May 2003
Local time: 01:11 AM
Location: Delta House
Posts: 17648
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NBC: Special won't show Madonna on cross
NEW YORK - Backing away from a confrontation with religious groups, NBC said Thursday it has decided not to show pictures of Madonna mounting a Crucifix when it airs a concert special with the pop star next month.
The concert, which lists Madonna as an executive producer, is scheduled to air Nov. 22.
During the provocative passage in her concert, Madonna is shown on a mirrored cross wearing a crown of thorns. She has explained that it was meant to illustrate a theme of confession.
But this angered some religious leaders, who called it a bad-taste publicity stunt. Several religious groups in the United States told NBC they would organize a boycott of one of the concert's commercial sponsors if the cross scene appeared, and were meeting next week to decide which company to target.
NBC didn't explain its decision, with a spokeswoman saying the network doesn't discuss how its editorial decisions are made. NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly ducked out of an industry function in Los Angeles Thursday before reporters could reach him.
"NBC did the right thing, but the fact that it did not say why the offensive part of Madonna's concert was cut shows cowardice," said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League. "What NBC should have done is to admit that since it refused to air the Danish cartoons that Muslims objected to earlier in the year, it felt obliged not to treat Christians in a discriminatory manner."
NBC will still show a performance of "Live to Tell," but use different camera angles so that Madonna isn't seen until she gets off the cross, the network said.
The pop star, whose video for "Like a Prayer" likewise left some religious leaders cold two decades ago, explained earlier that she wasn't mocking the church and considered the scene no different than a person who wears a cross.
Asked about it an interview late this summer, Reilly told TVGuide.com that the crucifixion scene would probably be in the special. He said Madonna "felt strongly about it."
"We viewed it and, although Madonna is known for being provocative, we didn't see it as being ultimately inappropriate," Reilly said then, according to the Web site.
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....like no business I know...
-HECK!
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10-20-2006 05:24 PM
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I don't believe so. And to be judged for that is wrong. She's too old to be birthing a child, since the baby could be born with any number of problems.
