Hear Me Out! Florida and AdoptionTHE GAY ALLIANCE of THE GENESEE VALLEY NEWS (NY)April 20, 2006Hear Me Out: Florida and AdoptionWritten By: Mubarak Dahir
http://www.gayalliance.org/content/view/341/53/
Gay Alliance of the Genesee ValleySixteen states are looking to ban gay adoption. Before they do so,they should study the state of Florida. Twelve-year-old MichaelGulliford-Green just wanted lawmakers in the state of Florida, wherehe now lives, to know about his family.That's why, on the morning of March 9, he got up early, put on astriped green shirt and docker pants, and flew to the capitol inTallahassee.There, he read a letter to legislators about his two dads, BuddyGulliford and Jim Green.
Michael's appearance was a passionate plea for the lawmakers to overturn the state law that forbids gay or lesbian people fromadopting kids.Florida is the only state that blatantly bans all gay and lesbianpeople from adopting. But other states have laws that discriminateagainst gay adoptions in one way or another.
Mississippi, for example, bans adoptions by gay or lesbian couples.But since it is mute on gay or lesbian singles adopting, that isofficially allowed. If you can get an adoption agency and a judge toagree to it.
Utah prohibits all unmarried couples from adopting kids. And since gayand lesbian people can't marry there, they can't adopt.Meanwhile, there are moves in 16 additional states to ban gay andlesbian people from adopting. It's one of the hot new fronts on the culture wars.The right is trying to make the 'protection' of children the issuehere, under the rubric of 'Family values'.
Russell Johnson, chairman of the Ohio Restoration Project, equatesallowing gays and lesbians to adopt to 'experimenting on children'.And the Vatican calls gay adoptions 'gravely immoral'. It evengoes so far as to say that allowing gay people to adopt means 'doing violence to these children'.
Allow Michael Gulliford-Green to politely disagree. Michael was in the New York foster care system before his new dads,Gulliford and Green, took him in. In fact, Michael actually chose hisfathers, from their profile in what is called a 'life book', which allows kids to get a glimpse into their prospective new parents. Michael was eight years old at the time. Michael knows he is one of the lucky ones. Many kids spend yearslanguishing in the foster care system, being shuttle from foster home to foster home before they land with an adoptive family. Others never get adopted at all. That's why Michael was understandably nervous he would be taken awayfrom the family he loves when they moved from New York state to Florida. But even though the state of Florida does not allow gay and lesbian people to adopt in the state, it recognizes out-of-state adoptions. So Michael is safe.
But there are thousands of other kids in the foster care system who are not. There are an estimated half million kids in foster care in America without parents. Of course, gay and lesbian people have always had children and beenparents. Most, of course, do it the old-fashioned way, by getting married and having kids through straight relationships. According to an analysis of the 2000 Census, there are roughly 250,000 same-sex couples in America raising children.
There has never been any evidence that children raised by same-sex households fare any worse than children raised in other households. Indeed, at least one studies suggests that children in lesbian households may have better early development than children in one-mother, one-father households, because two moms may give a child evenmore attention than the 'standard' family model. In the long list of studies that show gay and lesbian parents and their children do just as well as anyone else, add a recent study by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.
Meanwhile, a study by the National Center for Lesbian Rights looked at the situation in Florida, the only state that outright bans any form of gay adoption. The conclusions were dismal. The situation in Florida should act as a warning to other states that are attempting to invoke this senseless ban against gay adoptions. According to the NCLR study, Florida has more kids in foster care than the national average and they stay in the foster care system longer than in other states. Furthermore, according to a report by the Florida Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability, ''Foster youth typically perform poorly in school, are at higher risk of unemployment, have long-term dependence on public assistance and have increased rates of incarceration. "Yeah, we wouldn't want those kids placed with loving gay or lesbianparents, would we?Of course, social workers and others who work to find kids adoptive parents have long known that gay and lesbian people can be just as good parents as straight people, too and most of them care about just one thing: finding a good, decent home for a child to live in. Who cares if the parents are gay or straight?The answer, of course, is only the politicians and the religious right, who would use these kids and their futures, as a political football to be punted.
Even in Florida, some politicians have finally seen the inanity of the anti-gay adoption law and are trying to ease it, since overturning it would sadly be a political impossibility. Two proposed bills in the state legislature would allow judges to grant adoptions to gay or lesbian parents if the judge determined it would be in the best interest of the child. The proposed measures are designed mostly to give gay and lesbian foster parents (which Florida ironically allows) more clout in their efforts to secure adoption for the kids in their care. In the coming, inevitable fights across the country over gay adoption, we will undoubtedly hear the rhetoric that allowing gay and lesbian people to adopt would harm kids. But all that preventing gay and lesbian people from adopting will do is reduce the number of loving parents out there for children adrift who need homes. In this national fight, we should make sure Americans see the clear example and contrast between the sad state of affairs for foster-care kids in the state of Florida and the ironically happy difference ofpeople like Michael Gulliford-Green.(C) 2006 THE GAY ALLIANCE of THE GENESEE VALLEY NEWS (NY)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Out congressman sees bright future for LGBT rights Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told an audience at a fundraiser for the Utah Stonewall Democrats that today's younger LGBT activists will live to see legal marriage for gays and lesbians and an embrace of LGBT rights in general. But he urged individuals to come out of the closet and work to achieve the movement's goals. "We don't win this alone. We win this with the people who love us, who support us," Frank said. The Salt Lake Tribune (Utah) (4/22)
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Storms says threats won't make her change views
The Hillsborough commissioner and state Senate candidate wants to bar gay and lesbian couples from foster parenting.
ADAM C. SMITH and BILL VARIANPublished April 23, 2006
Despite what she described as threats and "horrible things said and done to me" for her role banning official recognition of gay pride events, Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms said that if elected to the state Senate she would try to bar gay and lesbian couples from serving as foster parents.
In a TV interview airing today, the controversial commissioner also took a shot at former state Rep. Sandy Murman, her main rival for the Republican nomination to succeed Tom Lee in the Senate. Murman really lives outside the district, Storms said, and doesn't understand the issues as well as a true local. "Her plan is to move to the district if she gets elected. She lives on Davis Islands in South Tampa. My plan is to keep her on Davis Islands," Storms said in a taped interview for Political Connections airing today at 11 a.m. on Bay News 9.
"Nonsense," said Murman. Despite having a homestead exemption on a waterfront Davis Islands home, she insisted her Savannah Landings townhome in Valrico is her home. "When my House district encompassed Tampa, I still spent 90 percent of my time in Brandon. ... I keep saying to these people like Storms, "Just accept the fact that I live there,"' said Murman. She called Storms "an empty suit who's all style and no substance.
"Republicans Storms, Murman and Ray Young, a contractor and former Plant City Chamber of Commerce president, are running in the heavily Republican district that includes eastern Hillsborough, southeast Pasco and a bit of western Polk. Iraq war veteran and Hillsborough Community College staffer Stephen Gorham is the lone Democrat running.
Storms is widely viewed as the front-runner largely because of the high profile she has earned as an often controversial commissioner. She has become embroiled in bitter public arguments with County Commissioner Kathy Castor, vocally opposed adult businesses, and most famously led the fight to stop Hillsborough from recognizing gay pride events. On Political Connections, Storms said she supported state lawmakers intervening to keep Terri Schiavo alive, wants to pass as many restrictions on abortion as possible and supports changing Florida's practice of allowing gay and lesbian couples from serving as foster parents. Gays and lesbians can care for foster children, but under Florida law cannot adopt children."I don't support putting at-risk children in homes that I think are at-risk themselves," she said of gay foster parents. Storms said the hostility she has received from gay and lesbian residents has been unfair: "I've had all sorts of threats and horrible things said and done to me. ... I never attacked anybody's appearance and in fact worked very closely with people who are out-of- the-closet homosexuals and they will tell you I have never done anything but treat them with dignity and respect in my personal working relationship with them.
"Nadine Smith, executive director of the antidiscrimination advocacy group Equality Florida, said she wished Storms' supporters would stop viewing gay parents as an abstraction and instead consider the morality of pulling children away from parents who raised them all their lives. Or the wisdom of refusing to let an aunt adopt a child whose parents are killed in a car accident because that aunt and closest relative is lesbian. At a time when Florida faces a serious shortage of foster homes, Smith said, "Ronda Storms' hatred of gays runs so deep that she's willing to leave a child in harm's way to take any antigay political swipe. ... The casual way she is willing to attack gay people and tear apart families is just pathetic and to portray herself as a victim is absurd.
"Murman said that in the Legislature she and her colleagues explored barring gay foster parents, but backed off when it became clear "we would have a lot of children without homes. "Young said he agreed with Storms on gay foster parents and most other issues, but the big difference between them is style. He said he would be much more diplomatic and collegial. He also noted that unlike Storms and Murman, most of his financial support comes from people living in the district.Asked after the TV interview to elaborate on the threats and attacks on her, Storms provided copies of more than two dozen e-mails, letters and Internet postings, many containing vulgar personal insults and at least one containing a direct threat.
Starting Monday, the Storms interview on Political Connections can be seen on Channel 340 (Tampa Bay on Demand).© Copyright, St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.
Nadine Smith
Executive DirectorEquality Florida 813-870-3735 nadine@eqfl.orgwww.eqfl.org
The Hillsborough commissioner and state Senate candidate wants to bar gay and lesbian couples from foster parenting.
ADAM C. SMITH and BILL VARIANPublished April 23, 2006
Despite what she described as threats and "horrible things said and done to me" for her role banning official recognition of gay pride events, Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms said that if elected to the state Senate she would try to bar gay and lesbian couples from serving as foster parents.
In a TV interview airing today, the controversial commissioner also took a shot at former state Rep. Sandy Murman, her main rival for the Republican nomination to succeed Tom Lee in the Senate. Murman really lives outside the district, Storms said, and doesn't understand the issues as well as a true local. "Her plan is to move to the district if she gets elected. She lives on Davis Islands in South Tampa. My plan is to keep her on Davis Islands," Storms said in a taped interview for Political Connections airing today at 11 a.m. on Bay News 9.
"Nonsense," said Murman. Despite having a homestead exemption on a waterfront Davis Islands home, she insisted her Savannah Landings townhome in Valrico is her home. "When my House district encompassed Tampa, I still spent 90 percent of my time in Brandon. ... I keep saying to these people like Storms, "Just accept the fact that I live there,"' said Murman. She called Storms "an empty suit who's all style and no substance.
"Republicans Storms, Murman and Ray Young, a contractor and former Plant City Chamber of Commerce president, are running in the heavily Republican district that includes eastern Hillsborough, southeast Pasco and a bit of western Polk. Iraq war veteran and Hillsborough Community College staffer Stephen Gorham is the lone Democrat running.
Storms is widely viewed as the front-runner largely because of the high profile she has earned as an often controversial commissioner. She has become embroiled in bitter public arguments with County Commissioner Kathy Castor, vocally opposed adult businesses, and most famously led the fight to stop Hillsborough from recognizing gay pride events. On Political Connections, Storms said she supported state lawmakers intervening to keep Terri Schiavo alive, wants to pass as many restrictions on abortion as possible and supports changing Florida's practice of allowing gay and lesbian couples from serving as foster parents. Gays and lesbians can care for foster children, but under Florida law cannot adopt children."I don't support putting at-risk children in homes that I think are at-risk themselves," she said of gay foster parents. Storms said the hostility she has received from gay and lesbian residents has been unfair: "I've had all sorts of threats and horrible things said and done to me. ... I never attacked anybody's appearance and in fact worked very closely with people who are out-of- the-closet homosexuals and they will tell you I have never done anything but treat them with dignity and respect in my personal working relationship with them.
"Nadine Smith, executive director of the antidiscrimination advocacy group Equality Florida, said she wished Storms' supporters would stop viewing gay parents as an abstraction and instead consider the morality of pulling children away from parents who raised them all their lives. Or the wisdom of refusing to let an aunt adopt a child whose parents are killed in a car accident because that aunt and closest relative is lesbian. At a time when Florida faces a serious shortage of foster homes, Smith said, "Ronda Storms' hatred of gays runs so deep that she's willing to leave a child in harm's way to take any antigay political swipe. ... The casual way she is willing to attack gay people and tear apart families is just pathetic and to portray herself as a victim is absurd.
"Murman said that in the Legislature she and her colleagues explored barring gay foster parents, but backed off when it became clear "we would have a lot of children without homes. "Young said he agreed with Storms on gay foster parents and most other issues, but the big difference between them is style. He said he would be much more diplomatic and collegial. He also noted that unlike Storms and Murman, most of his financial support comes from people living in the district.Asked after the TV interview to elaborate on the threats and attacks on her, Storms provided copies of more than two dozen e-mails, letters and Internet postings, many containing vulgar personal insults and at least one containing a direct threat.
Starting Monday, the Storms interview on Political Connections can be seen on Channel 340 (Tampa Bay on Demand).© Copyright, St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.
Nadine Smith
Executive DirectorEquality Florida 813-870-3735 nadine@eqfl.orgwww.eqfl.org
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