Opinion: A spark for gay rights in Florida -- relatively speaking
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| Anita Bryant husband Bob Green, celebrating passage of 1977 law banning adoption by gay couples. (AP Photo) |
‘Relatively’ is an important caveat. Although miffed same-sex couples in California probably wouldn’t find any comfort in the fact that they don’t live Florida, the Sunshine State is positively medieval compared to the Golden State on gay rights. As in California on Nov. 4, voters in Florida passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage -- an amendment that needed 60% support to pass, not the too-easily-surmountable simple majority our state Constitution suffers from. Yet writing discrimination into its constitution wasn’t much of a leap for the state that thrust Anita Bryant to homophobe super-stardom. Florida doesn’t have civil unions, and for 31 years, it has heartlessly banned same-sex couples from adopting children (gay couples can serve only as foster parents).
Thanks to a state court ruling today, however, the adoption ban may soon be kicked out of the 21st century. According to the Associated Press:
Florida’s strict law banning adoption of children by gay people was found unconstitutional Tuesday by a state judge who declared there was no legal or scientific reason for sexual orientation alone to prohibit anyone from adopting. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman said the 31-year-old law violates equal protection rights for the children and their prospective gay parents, rejecting the state’s arguments that there is ‘a supposed dark cloud hovering over homes of homosexuals and their children.’ She also noted that gay people are allowed to be foster parents in Florida.... Because state attorneys immediately filed a notice of appeal, the ruling is likely to set the stage for a battle that could reach the Florida Supreme Court. A judge in gay-friendly Key West also found the law unconstitutional in September, but that ruling has not been appealed and has limited legal reach. Florida is the only state with an outright ban on gay adoption. Arkansas voters last month approved a measure similar to a law in Utah that bans any unmarried straight or gay couples from adopting or fostering children. Mississippi bans gay couples, but not single gays, from adopting.
Here’s the money argument from the state of Florida:
The state presented experts who claimed there was a higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among gay couples, that they were more unstable than heterosexual unions and that the children of gay couples suffer a societal stigma.
Yeah, ‘children of gay couples suffer a societal stigma’ -- to which the state of Florida actively contributes by banning same-sex partners from adopting and marrying. These anti-gay arguments just write themselves, don’t they?