Florida Editorial Calls for Equal Adoption Rights
March 4, 2006: Check out this great editorial from the Tallahassee Democrat, which calls for Florida lawmakers to repeal their ban on adoption by people who are LGBT:
At first glance, the news that the state Legislature might revisit Florida’s counterproductive ban on gay adoptions sounds encouraging. But in an election year, skepticism is called for.
Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, who chairs the House Future of Florida’s Families Committee, said he’d consider scheduling a vote on legislation that would allow gays to adopt the children they care for as foster parents.
However, re-election-minded lawmakers could well “reconsider” the ban by emphatically upholding it. Gay adoption is assumed to be non-negotiable for many socially conservative voters.
Yet the welfare of Florida’s 35,000 children awaiting adoption is the issue that matters most. Lifting the ban would deepen the pool of potential adoptive parents, and that absolutely is the right thing to work for.
The bill to end the ban, sponsored by Sen. Nan Rich, D-Sunrise, has been postponed while she works to persuade colleagues of the logic of her position.
Ms. Rich is no doubt acutely aware that some of her colleagues running for re-election fear a backlash if they vote for her bill. We urge them to focus on the timeless and apolitical issues of child welfare and basic fairness. If a gay person already is acting as a foster parent, why shouldn’t he or she be eligible to adopt the child?
That question is even more pressing if a gay foster parent wants to adopt the kind of child who is traditionally hard to place: one with AIDS or special needs, an older child or one with siblings.
“The problem is getting people to focus on the exception,” Ms. Rich said. “We’re focusing strictly on gay foster parents who are already fostering.”
While Mississippi and Utah have laws that hinder gays from adopting, Florida is the only state with an outright ban - not a distinction to be proud of. Mississippi bans gay couples, not singles, from adopting, and Utah requires adoptive parents to be married.
Opponents of gay adoption have claimed that children adopted by gay parents could be sexually confused and ostracized by their peers. But a growing body of research runs counter to the first claim, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which supports gay adoption. If lawmakers have credible evidence to the contrary, they need to present it.
As to the second concern, remaining in the limbo of foster care is arguably far more traumatic than being the target of schoolyard teasing. It’s also worth remembering that adoption is an expensive, time-consuming process, and the majority of prospective parents - regardless of sexual orientation - want to give a child a safe, loving home.
Should lawmakers examine Florida’s adoption policy, they should keep their eye on one ball: giving the state’s most vulnerable children every opportunity to be placed in a good home - permanently.