Posted on 03/20/2002 9:44:50 AM PST by LarryLied
In 1977, Anita Bryant put a public face on homophobia in Florida. In 2002, Rosie O'Donnell wants to replace that image with tolerance, not to mention common sense. As a gay parent, Ms. O'Donnell is supporting efforts to overturn Florida's law banning adoption by homosexuals.
Ms. Bryant aimed her "Save Our Children" campaign 25 years ago at repealing Miami-Dade County's gay-rights law, and she succeeded. Amid the vitriol, Florida legislators prohibited adoption by homosexuals statewide. Only Florida, Utah and Mississippi continue the archaic practice. Ms. O'Donnell, who has a home in Miami Beach, adopted three children in New York and has a 4-year-old foster daughter. She is urging repeal of the law that prevents her from becoming the girl's mother.
Since 1990, three lawsuits have challenged the ban, but the fourth caught Ms. O'Donnell's attention. Miami men Steven Lofton and Roger Croteau wanted to adopt Bert, a 10-year-old boy they had cared for since he was a 9-week-old infant. Bert and three of their other four foster children were infected with the AIDS virus. When Bert's mother died in 1994 and the men tried to adopt him, the state rejected their application. In 1999, the Florida Department of Children and Families said another family could adopt Bert, since he no longer was HIV-positive.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of the Miami men, who now live in Portland, Ore., and two other gay adoptive families. In August, U.S. District Judge Lawrence King upheld the law. The ACLU appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit. The Child Welfare League of America told the court that the ban hurts the thousands of Florida foster children awaiting adoption. Last week, nine Democrats, including former Senate President Harry Johnston of West Palm Beach, apologized for voting in 1977 to support the ban.
The ACLU has a Web site, www.lethimstay.com, and is directing an e-mail campaign at DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney and Gov. Bush. Ms. Kearney says the issue is for the courts to decide. Gov. Bush has not commented. The ACLU also is publishing Too High A Price: The Case Against Restricting Gay Parenting. Ms. O'Donnell wrote the introduction.
Though the state should try to place children in adoptive homes with parents of different genders, many couples don't want boys or girls who are older or who have medical or behavioral problems. It is indefensible to deny those children a loving home because the parents are homosexual. Ms. Bryant's celebrity helped pass a bad law. Ms. O'Donnell's may help to overturn it. Ms. Kearney is right. The court should decide -- and find the ban unconstitutional.
As a rule of thumb, liberals should be VERY cautious how they use the term “common sense” as a liberal opinion and “sense” rarely coincide.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
I'm sorry, but it's getting to the point that whenever I read an article and come across the word "homophobia," I hit the flush handle and send the rest of the article swirling down the drain.
Other words that trigger this reaction: "diversity," "tolerance," "multicultural," "medicinal marijuana," and "statist."
Gee, pretty soon it (gay-adoption and adpoting in general) will be as easy as getting a puppy ...
</sarcasm>
This article is disgusting.
I'm personally uncomfortable with gay couples adopting, for the basic reasons that many here state; namely, the most stable and nurturing environment for a child to grow up in is a two-parent, male and female household.
I'm Canadian (I know, I know, pathetic socialists all), and maybe gay activism isn't as rabid up here as it is in the States but this issue isn't as nearly as high on the radar screen up here. Then again, most folks I know take the old attitude that says "if you keep it at home and out of my face and no one's getting hurt it's none of my business."
I was adopted as an infant so I've personally given this and other issues like it to do with unwanted kids/abortion on demand, etc a fair bit of workover in my mind.
I have what many might think a fair number of gay acquaintances (almost all men), including the two guys who were "married" last year, and to a one they consider this issue a non-starter as none of them have ever had the urge to be parents. Now granted, I don't hang out with a lot of leftists, so this may skew my sample somewhat. These guys are as uncomfortable with in-your-face gay activism as much as any straight people I know. They just want to be left to go about their lives and make a decent living and treat others as they themselves are treated. BTW, the constant carping about all gays being pedophiles and rabid perverts is wearisome. Yes, there are gay pedophiles, but there are a lot of non-gay ones as well (I refuse to call them "straight.") They are perverts in the standard definition. People that make this sweeping claim probably don't know many if any gays personally, IMHO.
Okay, now for the story.
A couple of years ago in Toronto there was a lesbian couple who had been in a committed relationship for the better part of a decade. One of the women had a daughter from a previous marriage...I believe she was 12 or 13 at the time. The daughter had been raised in the household with Mom and her partner from when she was an infant.
The mother developed HIV/Aids from tainted blood. We had a massive blood scandal up here where the Red Cross provided poisoned blood in the 1980's and thousands of hemophiliacs and surgery patients were infected without their knowledge. The Red Cross wasn't testing for whatever was in the blood at the time. (oh, and get this...the buzz was that the blood originated from Arkansas prison inmates but before anything could get to court the records mysteriously vanished - and guess who the governor of Arkansas was at the time!)
So, Mom is in her last months of life and the partner wanted to legally adopt the girl as her own. If I recall correctly the dying woman had no other family and the daughter wanted to remain in the home with her mother's partner. Now in Ontario law, there's nothing explicit against a gay person adopting, the rule applied is "best interests of the child." There was, however, restrictions against an openly gay couple adopting as a 2-parent adoption must be between a husband and wife. There was a huge kerfluffle over this situation as the law seemed iron clad. Basically the girl would have ended up a ward of the Childrens Aid Society and been shuffled off to foster homes. Ugly.
The mother desperately wanted this resolved before she died. She, and the girl, were horrified of the possibility of having to move into foster care, and this was at a time of some very high-profile abuse cases traced back to incompetent work by the Childrens Aid Society. If I recall correctly, and anyone with more knowledge of this case is free to correct me, they had to wait until the mother died before they could initiate the adoption procedings, but she was given quiet assurances that the Crown lawyers would put up only a token resistance. In the end, the girl stayed where she and her mother wanted her to be, with the partner, and the case was never heard from again. In fact, it's the last case like this to surface that I can remember.
Okay, that's the yarn. Any comments or alternate perspectives are welcome. I tell this story not to take a pro-gay adoption stance (I'm not there) but to illustrate how this really isn't a cut and dry issue in all cases. If ALL gay adoption is prohibited, what happens in case like this? I thank my parents constantly for adopting me and giving me a wonderful upbringing. I shudder to think what my life would have turned out like if I'd been raised in foster homes with strangers and no sense of a real "home." IMHO, the girl was the real winner in this case.
Thanks and good day all.
This Florida law is the kind of inflexibly discriminatory law that the courts have not shown much tolerance for. It's a stinker.
Why do judges have the right to determine this in the first place?
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