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Gays Fight For Adoption

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By MIKE SALINERO msalinero@tampatrib.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 18, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - Frank Martin Gill of North Miami is gay and a foster parent.

Gill and his partner want to adopt half brothers they've parented since 2004, but Florida law prohibits it. So the couple and the boys, ages 4 and 8, remain in legal limbo, waiting for a court or the Legislature to make them one family legally.

"Here in Florida, no matter how good a parent you've been, you don't have that option," Gill told a small audience at the state Capitol on Tuesday.

Democratic lawmakers are trying to overturn a law enacted in 1977 that specifically prohibits homosexual couples from adopting. Florida is the only state with such a law, although a handful of states have similar statutes.

The bills, HB 45 and SB 500, face an uphill battle this legislative session. The sponsors and co-sponsors are mostly Democrats in a Republican-controlled Legislature. Lawmakers this session are focused on the economy and closing a multi-billion-dollar budget deficit.

But supporters of the bills say public attitudes toward gays and lesbians are shifting, and they want to keep the pressure on lawmakers.

"People in our state and in our counties are beginning to understand that sexual orientation is not an indicator of success as a parent," said Sen. Nan Rich, a Sunrise Democrat who sponsored SB 500.

That may be so, but Florida voters indicated they still lean in a conservative direction when it comes to family issues as evidenced by their passage in November of a ban on gay marriage.

Gay adoption "would be a thumb in the eye to the 62 percent of Floridians who just voted to keep the benefits of marriage between a man and a woman," said Terry Kemple, executive director of the Valrico-based Community Issues Council, a conservative Christian organization.

More than 3,400 children are in Florida's foster care system. The ban on gay and lesbian adoption blocks many of those children from escaping a system that often condemns them to a future of homelessness or jail, supporters of the legislation say.

"Experience proves children don't do well in foster care," said Rep. Mary Brandenburg, a Lake Worth Democrat who sponsored the legislation in the House.

Kemple argues, however, that the main impediments to adoption are the legal hurdles facing prospective parents.

Gill and his partner won a preliminary legal victory in November when Miami Circuit Judge Cindy S. Lederman ruled the law unconstitutional. Courtenay Strickland, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the couple will carry the fight to the state Supreme Court if necessary.

"We're fighting on multiple fronts: litigation, legislation," Strickland said Tuesday. "One way or another, we'll get it changed."

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