Florida Gay Adoptn and Send Parent Adoptn - Alper Law

Contents:

• FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN AND SEND PARENT ADOPTN
• FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN
• FLORIDA COURT CALLS BAN ON GAY ADOPTNS UNLAWFUL
• FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN ENDS
• WHAT CHANGED WHEN THE GAY ADOPTN BAN WAS LIFTED?: PERSPECTIV OF LBIAN AND GAY PARENTS FLORIDA
• FLORIDA ENDS BAN ON GAY, LBIAN ADOPTNS
• WHY THE FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN IS IMMORAL
• FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN IS RULED UNNSTUTNAL
• U.S. JUDGE UPHOLDS FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN
• FLORIDA URT STRIK DOWN GAY ADOPTN BAN
• FLORIDA APPEALS URT STRIK DOWN GAY ADOPTN BAN

FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN AND SEND PARENT ADOPTN

However, is strongly remend by our office and the natnal gay rights anizatns that lbian married upl do a stepparent adoptn after the child’s birth to ensure that the blogil parent’s wife has full equal parental rights to the child. Commentg on the September lg, Robert Rosenwald, lead unsel for the Florida Amerin Civil Liberti Unn (ACLU), stated: "Clearly, Florida's gay adoptn law was the most dranian the natn until today.

At the same time that gays were prohibed om adoptg; those same dividuals were allowed to be foster argument opposn to the Florida gay adoptn ban was that the children of gay parents would be stigmatized bee of their parents’ that argument followed logic, then wouldn’t the foster children of gays be siarly stigmatized? ’s 35 page Third DCA opn, he stated: "It is difficult to see any ratnal basis utilizg homosexual persons as foster parents or guardians on a temporary or permanent basis, while imposg a blanket prohibn on adoptn by those same persons. )Soon after Judge Cope’s lg Governor Charlie Crist announced that the state of Florida will immediately cease enforcg the Florida gay adoptn Amerin Civil Liberti Unn (ACLU) and Mart Gill, the gay adoptive father at the center of the ntroversy, want to take the se to the Florida Supreme Court; so that gay adoptn be legal throughout the state -- once and for all.

FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN

22, 2010 A 30-year-old Florida law that prohibs adoptn by gay men and lbians is unnstutnal, a state appeals urt led on Wednday, and the state’s ernor said the law would not be enforced pendg a cisn on whether to appeal. The cisn by Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal said that Florida’s adoptn law, which bans adoptn by gay men and lbians while allowg them to be foster parents, had “no ratnal basis” and th vlated the equal protectn clse the State Constutn. Judge Cope wrote that at the trial, the state prented only two expert wns, one of whom unrcut the state’s se by disagreeg wh the ia of a blanket ban on gay adoptn, statg stead that adoptns should be nsired se by se.

Rekers, who was paid $120, 000 for his work the se, has sce been enmhed a sndal after he was disvered to have taken a 10-day trip to Europe wh a young man who advertised sexual servic on a se for gay rts. No rearch to date has examed the perspectiv or experienc of lbians and gay men Florida who have bee legal parents sce the gay adoptn ban was lifted, although scholars have studied heterosexual adoptive parents’ attus toward gay adoptn Florida (Averett et al. Children and fai may also benef directly that legal regnn of parent–child relatns validat the relatnships, enuragg society to view them as “real, ” which may crease stigma toward lbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB)-parent fai (Goldberg and Kuvalanka 2012) light of the momento legal shifts that have recently occurred Florida, this study exam the perceptns and experienc of lbians and gay men who beme the legal adoptive parents of their children, or who were actively seekg to adopt their children, sce the liftg of the ban.

Drawg om qualative terviews of 22 lbians and gay men, all of whom were parents and rints of Florida durg the ban, we exame the perceived nsequenc of both the ban, and the liftg of the ban, for same-sex upl. The two typ of s are distguished by the fact that, the latter, the children had one legal parent before the liftg of the, we (a) review the recent chang legal policy that have occurred ncerng Florida’s gay adoptn ban, (b) troduce the theoretil amework that guis the study, and (c) review the relevant Adoptn FloridaFlorida's 1977 law prohibg adoptn by openly gay men and women was long regard as the “tought anti-homosexual adoptn measure the untry” (Amerin Civil Liberti Unn 2001). The origal Florida statute stated that “no person eligible to adopt unr the statute may adopt if that person is a homosexual” but did not bar lbians and gay men om beg foster parents (S 2009).

FLORIDA COURT CALLS BAN ON GAY ADOPTNS UNLAWFUL

E., the “Save Our Children” mpaign) led by Ana Bryant, a pop sger and Florida Cs spokperson, who sisted that parents need to “save their children om the homosexual fluence” bee “homosexuals nnot reproduce, they mt rec, and to hen their ranks, they mt rec the youth of Ameri” (Frank 2013, p. The lol Center for Fay and Child Enrichment evaluated the fay’s home and found that Gill was a suable parent; however, the state Department of Children and Fai (DCF) nied his adoptn petn bee he was gay. Gill sued the state, argug that the Florida prohibn agast adoptn by sexual mori vlated the Florida Constutn bee nied lbians and gay men equal protectn and substantive due procs rights (“Prohibn agast adoptn by homosexuals is unnstutnal, ” Unknown thor, 2008).

Prented wh a robt body of lerature by the platiff’s experts, which showed that same-sex upl’ timate relatnships are siar stabily and satisfactn to those of heterosexual upl—and, further, that sexual orientatn is not a predictor of parentg abily—Lerman nclud that “the bt terts of children are not prerved by prohibg homosexual adoptn” and “sexual orientatn, solely, should not terfere wh a child’s right to enjoy the acutrements of a legal fay” (Walters 2009, p.

After the lg, the ernor orred DCF to stop enforcg the law; DCF then removed the qutn on applints’ sexual orientatn om s adoptn forms (“Bar didn't vlate ee speech, ” Unknown thor, 2009), as of this wrg, lbians and gay men Florida n bee adoptive parents.

FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN ENDS

Ined, historilly, lbians and gay men have been pennt upon an unpredictable judicial system, which has often been biased agast them based on their sexual orientatn, particularly s where legal parentage is ncerned (Richman 2005). As Richman (2005) explas, judg have the rponsibily to terme who is “servg” and “unservg” of rights, and, s where the petners are lbian/gay, the cisns are often ma on the basis of sexual orientatn.

675) fed mory strs as “the excs strs to which dividuals om stigmatized social tegori are exposed as a rult of their social, often mory, posn, ” and proposed that such mory strs, particularly maniftg as heterosexism and homophobia, ntribut to strs and mental health challeng sexual nial of civil rights and protectns, such as the right to adopt a child, “perpetuat an opportuny stcture that disenanchis gay men and lbians the soccultural, legal, enomic, and polil aspects of their liv” (Herdt and Kertzner 2006, p. In turn, lbians and gay men who are unable to adopt—and, particular, lbians and gay men who are parentg or fosterg children whout legal regnn as parents—may experience strs, as they navigate teractns wh heterosexist stutns (Kner 2012; Meyer et al.

WHAT CHANGED WHEN THE GAY ADOPTN BAN WAS LIFTED?: PERSPECTIV OF LBIAN AND GAY PARENTS FLORIDA

2011) Effects of Instutnalized Discrimatn on Lbian-/Gay-Parent FaiAlthough no rearch that we know of has examed the effects of state bans on gay adoptn on lbians’ and gay men’s mental health, a few studi have examed the impact of same-sex marriage bans on sexual mori (e. For example, a recent study found that there was a 13% crease medil and mental health re needs among gay and bisexual men Massachetts after same-sex marriage was legalized, ntrast to the statewi trend of creasg health re needs. E., anti-gay laws and polici) may have direct and direct effects on the more proximal settgs which sexual mori live, thereby ntributg to an anti-gay atmosphere, which has negative nsequenc for lbians’ and gay men’s mental health.

Furthermore, a study of lbian and gay adoptive upl found that, even after ntrollg for whether or not both parents had legally regnized relatnships to their children, parents livg stat wh a history of more favorable lgs regardg gay adoptn had greater well-beg than parents livg stat wh a history of more unfavorable lgs (Goldberg and Smh 2011). A handful of studi lend sight to the experienc of lbian/gay parents who sought legal regnn of their parental stat via send-parent adoptns—which, aga, allow children to have two legal parents.

In a study of 20 lbian and gay parents who had obtaed send-parent adoptns, Connolly (2002) found that all participants were motivated to pursue such adoptns to secure legal protectns for their children, and a few pursued them to alleviate ncerns about what uld happen if the legal parent died (i.

FLORIDA ENDS BAN ON GAY, LBIAN ADOPTNS

Participant RecmentParticipants were ved via email and listserv announcements to participate a study aimed at unrstandg the perspectiv of lbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgenr (LGBQT) parents wh regard to the gay adoptn ban, and the liftg of the ban. We sought “LGBQT parents who ri Florida and have been livg there sce before 2008” to participate a project “aimed at unrstandg how the gay adoptn ban, as well as the liftg of the ban, has affected the liv of LGBQT parents and fai Florida. Participants’ Reasons for Ridg FloridaGiven the historil challeng associated wh gay fay buildg Florida (Amerin Civil Liberti Unn 2001), of tert is why participants—some of whom began their fay buildg procs before the liftg of the ban—chose to live Florida.

” Fally, one participant named the “slower and more relaxed pace, ” and one participant mentned the “ease of travelg to other plac, ” as reasons for movg to and livg participants noted that they had serly nsired movg to more gay-iendly stat, but the above-scribed nsiratns (e.

”Many participants ntrasted their immediate muni wh the state of Florida, notg that while Florida as a whole was “nservative and homophobic, ” their muni were “not nearly as bad, ” which ma livg Florida “tolerable. Allison, for example, noted that while she disliked the “nservative climate” of Florida, “there’s no place I would rather raise a fay like ours… have [gay] elected officials and [gay] church and synagogu.

WHY THE FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN IS IMMORAL

”Seven participants, who lived ci such as Tampa and Fort Myers, characterized their muni as relatively “ntral”—that is, they were not particularly gay-iendly and not particularly homophobic: “Mostly people let people be, for the most part. ”Fally, six female participants, who lived ci such as Jacksonville and Leburg, scribed their immediate areas as nservative, notg that they were “not very gay-iendly at all” and “ the sense of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell, ’ ’s like the ary.

Our participants gave voice to a variety of reasons for this and suggted that spe their experienc of the anti-gay climate of the state as a whole, the possibily of gay-iendly muni did exist. ” Th, the children beg raised by the gay men were portrayed as experiencg nfn and anxiety regardg their parents’ abily to adopt them, illtratg how mory strs related to legal discrimatn n affect both parents and children (Goldberg and Kuvalanka 2012). That this challenge was raised by men only is ditive of the fact that, prr to the liftg of the gay adoptn ban, female same-sex upl Florida had more fay buildg optns than men: that is, as reflected our data, female upl uld build their fai via DI, as opposed to male upl, whose reproductive optns were more limed (i.

In discsg the challeng that they experienced associated wh the gay adoptn ban, participants who had bee parents before the ban was lifted (n = 12Footnote 1) emphasized strs and tensn associated wh the legal visibily of one partner’s parental stat, and, turn, the equy between the partners wh rpect to legal regnn. And we still live somewhat hostile world, and ’s certaly nceivable that some lunatic relative who thks beg gay is wrong might [ the event that somethg happened to the legal parent] go off and do somethg really unfortunate wh rpect to a child that is left wh a parent who’s not legally a parent.

FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN IS RULED UNNSTUTNAL

” Denise, whose partner had given birth to their prchool-aged son, stated simply, “It’s not fair that a gay person has to spend more money protectg rights that straight people get tomatilly. Richard explaed:There were several gay fai [at our class to bee foster parents] and we all knew each other, but we never uld talk to people about anythg that had to do wh our liv that pertaed to beg gay. Furthermore, some of them scribed their immediate muni as homophobic, highlightg how the effects of discrimatory state laws (such as those that ny basic civil rights) may trickle down to muni, creatg a nox social environment (Goldberg and Smh 2011).

U.S. JUDGE UPHOLDS FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN

Such anxieti mt be unrstood historil ntext: Lbians and gay men the USA have long been pennt upon an unpredictable and often discrimatory judicial system, particularly where parentg rights are ncerned (Richman 2005).

It is possible that beg parents may have heightened their awarens of the broar equali: Prr rearch on gay adoptive fathers found that, for some men, parenthood fostered greater nscns of, and polil mobilizatn surroundg, marriage equaly (Goldberg 2012). Attorneys who work wh same-sex upl should rema up-to-date on legislatn that impacts lbian/gay-parent fai, and be able to assist them obtag adoptns and send-parent adoptns (Shapiro 2013) fdgs have implitns for policymakers, that they pot to the trimental effects of the gay adoptn ban on children, parents, and fai, as well as the beneficial effects of the liftg of the ban for fay secury.

FLORIDA URT STRIK DOWN GAY ADOPTN BAN

2011) suggt that laws and polici that mimize legal equi between sexual mory and heterosexual persons have the potential to alleviate strs and other mental health difficulti lbians and gay men.

STORY HIGHLIGHTSState attorney general cis not to appeal urt lgA foster parent had challenged the state ban on adoptns by gay men and lbiansFlorida was the last state to have such a ban (CNN) -- Florida's ban on adoptns by gay men and lbians me to an official end Friday. In other words, when the Florida legislature passed the gay adoptn ban, there had not been a sgle reported se of an adoptn by an LGBT person that tells that the Florida adoptn ban, om the very begng, has been more about polics and sendg a msage of disapproval of homosexualy than about the well-beg of children. Ined, one of the state senators who sponsored the ban explaed at the time that "the problem Florida is that homosexuals are surfacg to such an extent that they're begng to aggravate the ordary folks, who have rights of their own.

FLORIDA APPEALS URT STRIK DOWN GAY ADOPTN BAN

" The law, he add, was aimed at tellg gay people to stay the ban was part of the backlash stoked by social nservativ like Ana Bryant after Da County, the mid-1970s, beme the first southern municipaly to enact a gay rights ordance.

Although the ordance had nothg to do wh children-- simply prohibed sexual orientatn discrimatn employment and hog--Bryant and other nservative activists formed an antigay anizatn lled "Save The Children.

" The group's lerature claimed that "the recment of our children is absolutely necsary for the survival and growth of homosexualy--for sce homosexuals nnot reproduce, they mt rec, they mt hen their ranks. " The outrageo claims led not only to the passage of a referendum repealg the gay rights ordance, but also to the enactment by the Florida legislature of the adoptn ban that is still on the books. But for many years now, Florida child welfare officials have regularly asked lbians and gay men to serve those paci, pecially when to children who are difficult to place bee of disabili or behavral problems.