In the wake of Prop 8 putting the kibosh on gay marriages in California and Arkansas voters saying no to gays adopting or even fostering children, the gay community needed some good news. Thanks to Florida Judge Cindy Lederman, they finally got some. And it's just in time for Thanksgiving! Her honor ruled the thirty-year-old ban that's kept gay men and women from adopting children in Florida is unconstitutional today. Right at the tail end of National Adoption Month, Lederman signed the papers that make Frank Gill an official dad.
Gill and his partner of eight years have been raising a set of half-brothers for the past four years, ever since a child abuse investigator put the boys in the couple's "temporary" care just before Christmas. They have been the only parents the younger of the two boys, who is just four years old, has ever really known. Now they're the only dads he'll ever have to know.
Lederman is the second Florida judge to challenge the decades-old ban this year. A judge in August dubbed it an "unveiled" expression of bigotry. Lederman agreed, stating that children should be granted the fundamental right to be raised in a loving home by two parents, even if their birth parents can't be called upon to do the job. Denying foster children of gays and lesbians that right means children's best interests are being denied.
Lederman's comments in the Miami Herald are just the sort of words we need to hear two days before Thanksgiving:
''This is the forum where we try to heal children, find permanent
families for them so they can get another chance at what every child
should know and feel from birth, and go on to lead productive lives. We pray for them
to thrive, but that is a word we rarely hear in dependency court.''
"It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's
ability to parent. Sexual orientation no more leads to psychiatric
disorders, alcohol and substance abuse, relationship instability, a
lower life expectancy or sexual disorders than race, gender,
socioeconomic class or any other demographic characteristic."
Duh! There are plenty of bad straight parents out there. And lots of good gay ones. Too bad I'm not a family court judge - I think I'd be good at this. Putting a damper on all this happy weeping, of course, is the state's attorney general's office - they've already guaranteed an appeal is headed to the third circuit court. But Frank Gill says he is happy today, and so are his sons. Yes, his sons. Because the adoption ban doesn't make more straight parents come pouring out of the woodwork.
``It results in more children being left without any parents at all. They don't have a mom or a dad," he told the Herald.
Here's to every child one day having a mom and dad or a mom and mom or a dad and dad . . . just as long as they have someone to love and care for them.
Image: Miami Herald (Frank Gill and one of his sons)
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