FLORIDA
Same-sex foster parents fight for their children
By Minnie Bruce Pratt
A struggle against a zealously anti-gay campaign is
currently being waged in Florida. Adoption by lesbian and gay
people was banned in the state in 1977, the result of a
right-wing crusade to "Save Our Children" under the figurehead
leadership of reactionary Anita Bryant.
Now several gay male foster parents are challenging the ban.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a suit on behalf
of foster parents Wayne Smith and Dan Skahen. The suit also
includes partners Steven Lofton and Roger Croteau, who are
raising five children--including three foster children who have
never known other parents. Another plaintiff, Doug Houghton,
has raised a 10-year-old boy for five years. Last year the
court that denied his appeal for adoption admitted that he and
the child were as close as biological parent and child.
(www.aclu.org/news)
Support for repealing the ban has come from many
quarters.
As part of a coordinated effort to overturn the bigoted ban,
Emmy-award-winning talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell--also a
Florida foster parent--spoke about her sexuality publicly for
the first time in a March 14 ABC television "Primetime
Thursday" interview with Diane Sawyer. Since the program aired,
Florida legislators have received more than 100,000 emails
asking that the ban be overturned. (www.expressgaynews)
The Child Welfare League of America filed a brief in support
of the ACLU lawsuit. The CWLA is an 80-year-old organization
serving more than 3 million children and families annually.
CWLA support for gay foster parents follows on the heels of an
endorsement of lesbian and gay parenthood by the American
Academy of Pediatrics. In the February issue of its journal
"Pediatrics," the peer-reviewed, scientific journal stated,
"Children who are born to or adopted by one member of a
same-sex couple deserve the security of two legally recognized
parents."
Nine former members of the Florida House and Senate who
helped pass the ban recently issued a statement saying, "We now
realize we were wrong. This discriminatory law prevents
children from being adopted into loving, supportive homes--and
we hope it will be overturned." Signers include the former
speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and the former
president of the State Senate.
The real danger to
foster children: poverty
Movement organizing pushed back the wave of openly
right-wing, anti-abortion violence that hit Florida between
1984 and 1994. Now opposition to lesbian and gay parenting in
Florida is led by right-wing groups such as the Center for
Reclaiming America, an outgrowth of Coral Ridge Ministries.
Coral Ridge Ministries makes no secret of the fact that it
is a key backer of Judge Roy Moore, the Alabama Supreme Court
chief justice who recently issued a viciously bigoted ruling
against a lesbian mother.
CRA initiatives include a campaign to send baby rattles to
U.S. senators to get them to confirm anti-abortion nominees to
the U.S. Supreme Court. (www.religioustolerance.org)
Last summer more than 3,000 people--lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender, families and friends--marched to protest a
series of anti-gay newspaper ads placed by Coral Ridge
Ministries and other extremist groups. Gays United to Attack
Repression and Discrimination--GUARD--sponsored the "March for
Truth."
The march was made up of a coalition of more than 40 South
Florida organizations, including the American Federation of
Veterans, Black and White Men Together, Congregation Etz Chaim,
Dignity, Florida NOW, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
PFLAG, and the Stonewall Library and Archives.
Tony Ramos, president of GUARD, denounced Coral Ridge's
newspaper attacks. "Their ads play on people's insecurities
about homosexuality for political and monetary gain. They ...
foster bigotry and violence against lesbian and gay people."
(www.gaytoday.badpuppy.com)
Other Florida organizers are preparing to defend an existing
Miami-Dade County ordinance that passed in 1998. It prohibits
discrimination based on sexual orientation. Right-wing elements
are attempting to repeal that ordinance. They denounce lesbian,
gay, bi and trans people and their supporters as "corrupt
enemies of democracy," while cloaking themselves in a
"pro-family" mantle. (www.miami.com)
In fact, figures from the 2000 census show that
nontraditional households now make up 75 percent of all
families in the U.S. (New York Times, March 15) And that means
lesbian, gay, bi and trans families, too.
Wayne Smith, a plaintiff in the ACLU suit, told a gathering
of supporters at a March 14 forum at the Gay and Lesbian
Community Center of South Florida, "This is not a gay rights
case. This is a children's rights case."
His remarks underscore the grave crisis for foster care
children in this country. Between 1986 and 1996, the number of
children in the overall U.S. foster care system increased 90
percent. At the same time, the number of foster families
dropped by 3 percent. (www.join-hands.com/fostercare)
The advocacy group Join Hands-Justice for Children notes
that implementation of so-called "welfare reform" coincides
with the rise of children in foster care. The charge of neglect
is used in over half the cases in which children are removed
from their homes. The organization argues that behind this
neglect are two key problems--substance abuse and
poverty--neither of which is being addressed through state
support.
Instead, Aid to Dependent Children is being wiped out
through "workfare" programs. Loving parents are less and less
able to feed and clothe their children, while foster care
children have a clothing allowance and access to Medicaid.
(join-hands.com)
The right wing is trying to demonize loving gay and lesbian,
bisexual and transgender parents. But the danger to children
comes from the brutal effects of poverty and oppression.
Pratt, born in Selma, Ala., wrote her award-winning book
of poetry, "Crime Against Nature," after losing custody of her
two children because she came out as a lesbian in North
Carolina in 1975. The book takes its title from the
still-existing state "sodomy" statute criminalizing same-sex
love.
Reprinted from the April 4, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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