Gay Adoption Ban in Florida Challenged

by Michael A. Jones

Published November 17, 2008 @ 08:37AM PT

Banning gay adoption harms children.

I don't think that sentence can be repeated enough.  The American Psychological Association, the Child Welfare League of America, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Medical Association, the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all said the same thing.

Now, a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge will decide whether or not to overturn Florida's ban on gay adoption, after hearing arguments in a case involving a North Miami man who wants to adopt two children that he and his 34-year-old partner have been providing foster care to for the past four years.  Child welfare administrators in Florida have fully admitted that the children are thriving in the gay couple's home, but state law prevents gay adoption.

It's time to change Florida's law.

Florida is the only state in the country that outright bans gay adoption. Other states, including Arkansas (which recently passed Proposed Initiative Act 1), ban adoption by unmarried couples, which is a de facto ban on gay adoption.  But Florida is the only state that singles out gays and lesbians specifically in their adoption law.  Meanwhile, they allows felons to adopt and provide foster care.  They allow drug users to adopt and provide foster care.

But not gays and lesbians.  And it hurts children.  Nearly 22,000 Florida children are in state care, and more than 4,000 foster children are eligible for adoption, according to the state Department of Children & Families.  By preventing gays and lesbians from adopting these children, the state is effectively robbing these children of a chance to find a stable and supporting home environment.

Let's hope Judge Cindy Lederman of the Miami-Dade Circuit Court recognizes this.  She's set to rule on Florida's gay adoption ban later this month.  The State seemed to cross the line in bringing in so-called "experts" to testify on why the ban on gay adoption should stand. They used testimony from retired University of South Carolina Professor George A. Rekers, who in addition to supporting a ban on gay adoption, also supports a ban on allowing Native Americans to adopt, because he doesn't approve of their lifestyle and has "research" that shows Native Americans are at a much higher risk of mental illness and substance abuse.

Really?  This is who the state of Florida champions as an expert on child welfare?

As the Miami New Times concludes:

The scientific research on LGBT parenting is far from over, but just about every mainstream study concludes that children raised in same sex households are just as physically and mentally healthy as those raised in opposite sex households. The only difference comes from perception of gender roles, but if you haven't noticed our society in the past few decades has largely rejected traditional gender roles.

So to end this entry just the way it started, banning gay adoption hurts children.  Now it's up to Florida's Courts to recognize the same thing.