A Florida District Court of Appeals has overturned the state's ban on gay parent adoptions. This is long-overdue; many much more conservative states than Florida allow it, even those that have a ban on gay marriages.
Gov. Charlie Crist welcomed it, but the plaintiffs and the ACLU who represented them are hoping the state will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court so they can get a higher level decision, which they assume will be in their favor and would do away with this odious law statewide.
A side note of interest. It was in the hearings for this trial that Dr. George Rekers was the highly paid expert witness who testified for retaining the three-decade old law, using discredited "evidence" and outmoded thinking more typical of right-wing, religious idealogy than of science. When asked why he spent so much taxpayer money on this witness, the District Attorney said he had trouble finding an expert who would testify for the state's defense, implying that others were intimidated. I think, rather, there were no other experts willing to prostitute themselves by presenting bogus science. Another side note of interest: the District Attorney lost his race for the Republican nomination for governor.
Whether Rekers' now-notorious journey to Europe with a paid "rentboy" had any influence on the judge as she deliberated the case would be merely speculation. Rekers' attempts to explain this were just as bogus as his testimony in court: he needed help with his luggage because of a bad back. I understand bad backs, but why go to a gay-oriented escort website and choose a baggage handler with impressive penis dimensions rather than big biceps? When the world laughed at that, he then said, "I deliberately spend time with sinners in order to lovingly try to help them." OK, but a paid trip to Europe and daily nude massages as the form of help? The world laughed even harder.
Perhaps the judge was a grown-up who could actually think for herself and would have made the same decision anyway. Her opinion stated that she could find "no rational basis" for the ban.
One more anti-gay law bites the dust. Anita Bryant*, are your paying attention?
Ralph
* In 1977 singer Anita Bryant led the anti-gay "Save Our Children" campaign that eliminated Miami/Dade County's anti-discrimination law. In that climate of mass homophobia, the Florida legislature passed the 1977 law that banned adoption by gay parents. This prompted a nationwide boycott of the Florida Citrus Commission that featured Anita Bryant in its advertising campaign; she became an icon of ridicule nationally, and it effectively ended her career as a popular singer. It is this same 1977 law that the Circuit Court overturned in 2008 and that has now been sustained on appeal.
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I've been thinking about George Rekers some lately. I was reading about homosexuality versus pedophilia. It said, "pedophiles are attracted to 'youth'." Rekers' CV has been pulled from the Internet, but as I recall, he had a number of overseas stints and affiliations in countries where pedophilia is sort of okay - places where pedophiles go [like the Netherlands]. His history is more that of a pedophile than a closeted Gay man. And, after all, it was "rentboy."
ReplyDeleteNow Eddie Long. I'm wondering if the "anti-Gay" people who get busted are often pedophiles - heterosexual guys who have the 'whatever pedophiles have' propensity - attracted to 'youth'...
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