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Jeb Bush Urged to Lift Ban on Adoption by HRC

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Courtesy of Human Rights Campaign

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: Urged to support lifting Flordia's gay adoption ban

Washington, D.C. -Republican Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been urged by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to support lifting the state's ban on gay adoption. The ban flies in the face of science, hurts children languishing in foster care and lacks moral leadership, said HRC officials.

"We call on Governor Bush to take the moral high ground and support ending this discriminatory law that tears families apart and leaves more than 3,000 of Florida's children unnecessarily languishing in foster care," said HRC Executive Director Elizabeth Birch. "Bush should immediately use his authority to speak out against the ban and direct state caseworkers to process applications irrespective of sexual orientation."

"Florida's anti-gay adoption ban is a national disgrace, a daily insult and a harm to the thousands of children whose prospects for adoption are threatened because bigotry eliminates qualified parents," said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, a statewide group representing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Floridians.

Florida has the most comprehensive law of the three states that ban gay or lesbian individuals and/or couples from adopting. The other states that have prohibitions are Mississippi and Utah. What makes Florida's law the most restrictive is its blanket prohibition on gay individuals from adopting. Mississippi prohibits adoption by same-sex couples, while Utah prohibits gay or unmarried heterosexual couples from adopting. Efforts to overturn the Florida ban gained momentum this week when talk show host Rosie O'Donnell came out as a lesbian and joined efforts to overturn the law. O'Donnell, who owns a home in Florida, has three adopted children.

In August, a federal judge in Miami upheld Florida's 24-year-old law prohibiting same-sex adoption. The case, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. Following the ruling, a spokesperson for Gov. Bush said that he supports the ruling.

"We are complying with the law," said his spokeswoman, Katie Baur. "That is what we have to say."

In February, the Child Welfare League of America told the appeals court that the ban hurts children who are waiting to be placed in adoptive homes. And last week, nearly a dozen former state legislators who voted for in favor of the ban in 1977 apologized for supporting it and publicly called for the ban to be repealed.

There are currently more than 500,000 children in the foster care system in the United States being deprived of stable homes and loving families. The Child Welfare League of America, the American Psychological Association and the North American Council on Adoptable Children all have issued policy statements saying that sexual orientation is not a determinant of good parenting. The two child welfare organizations also have said that adoption agencies should simply disregard sexual orientation when evaluating an adoptive parent.

In February, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement supporting legal and legislative efforts to provide second-parent or co-parent adoptions to same-sex couples. The policy statement was published in Pediatrics, a peer-reviewed academic journal. It urged AAP members to "support the right of every child and family to the financial, psychological and legal security that results from having legally recognized parents who are committed to each other and the welfare of their children."

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Lawmakers Who Banned Adoption Admit to Being Wrong

American Academy of Pediatrics OKs Gay Couples Adopting

Rosie O'Donnell Works with ACLU Overturning Adoption Ban

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"The experts agree that the only way to determine what is in the best interest of a child is to make these important adoption decisions on a case-by-case basis," said Lisa Bennett, deputy director for HRC FamilyNet www.hrc.org/familynet, the most comprehensive resource for and about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender families and author of The State of the Family, a new report just released by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

"Numerous studies make it abundantly clear that gay and lesbian families are just as capable of raising healthy, happy children as any other family."