This made me so happy, especially after the disastrous Prop 8. Please, please, please people, can we stop obsessing over whether Jim likes Jack or Jill?

Basically, I found the State of Florida's argument to be: think of the children! They might catch Teh Gay! Teh Gay!

Let's interview a few children in need of good foster homes and adoption and ask them whether they would prefer no home or a home with a gay couple. I think they'd be willing to risk Teh Gay.

"I realize there are conservatives, including the Republicans' most recent presidential nominee, who believe children without parents are better off in orphanages than being adopted by gay people. What's less obvious to me is how they rationalize this position, beyond just blind ignorance and bigotry."

Because they believe homosexuality is a "sin." It makes no sense, but neither does prejudice against any other group. There was never any evidence that blacks were inferior to whites--but that didn't prevent most white Americans from accepting the idea for most of American history.

dan savage's book about his and his partner's adoption, the kid, is a wonderful counter to the state of florida crap and highly recommended.

as dan points out, you can go out, get drunk, get pregnant, and have a kid, but you can't go out, get drunk, and adopt a kid....

What's less obvious to me is how they rationalize this position, beyond just blind ignorance and bigotry.

Nope, that's about it, if you add in pandering to blind ignorance and bigotry for political gain. There's a widespread bit of wingnut logic among "social conservatives" that since gay men can't reproduce (and in this, as in so many other areas, they're only concerned about men), and since being gay isn't "natural," that gay men turn children gay through child abuse. Since there isn't any actual evidence of this, they can't use it in court, but it's part of the way they motivate their people into a frenzy over it.

One way to remove the social stigma of being a gay couple would be to allow them to get married. And I wonder . . . was instablity or alcohol and drug abuse a factor in removing these kids from there birth parents? Maybe part of the getting married process should be a state-mandated evaluation of fitness to be parents.

One of the main reasons I could never be a lawyer like my dad is that I could never argue convincingly for a position I did not believe in. The arguments that the state lawyers came up with sound much like I would have come up with in their position. It is unlikely they believed in the case they were assigned to pursue.

It's a very encouraging development. Hubby and I considered adopting years ago, and even went throught he preliminary steps. My seroconversion pretty much put an end to that, though.

A good resource for those interested in the issue was created by the children themselves: Children Of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere (COLAGE). Reading what the kids themselves have to say can be eye-opening.

"their relationships were less stable than those of heterosexuals"

Well then you should let them get married, obviously.

Nice to see the functional shift in focus from thought-less, fascistic vilification of the "other" to rational, empirical assessment. As you pointed out, Mr. Benen, adoption is an incredibly rigorous process. Now perhaps attention can be focused on the REAL problem, foster care, as in finding homes that are both willing AND qualified. Here in Texas, the paucity of number and quality of homes is depressing. Not that there aren't lots of great foster homes; there are. But some of the stories I've heard, not a few emanating from upstanding, 'Christian' folks, would curl your innards. Foster care, not gay adoption, is the real tragedy of our child care system. Yet another victory for modern conservatism's program of obfuscation, obstruction, and failure.

The state presented experts who argued that there was a higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among same-sex couples, that their relationships were less stable than those of heterosexuals, and that their children suffered a societal stigma.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that this is even true. Wouldn't one also assume, then, that perhaps the reason this was true was precisely because of discrimination againt gay couples which would lead to stress and instability, and that the way to fix this would be to offer full marriage and family rights? Otherwise the argument simply becomes "we have to keep discriminating against them because they're stigmatized!"

As a 36 year old (educated, successful, married mom) raised by gay parents I have to snarfle at the "social stigma" of my upbringing. As a resident of Florida I am glad that my parents can now if they choose, officially adopt my brothers the three special needs children they have been raising to manhood for the past 15 years ... The fact that they might ever have been at risk of having those boys taken from their care is a travesty.

the state presented experts who argued that there was a higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among same-sex couples (men have higher incidents of drug and alcohol abuse than women, so only Lesbians ought to be allowed to adopt), that their relationships were less stable than those of heterosexuals, and that their children suffered a societal stigma, both of which could be avoided by recognition of gay marriage.

Thanks, Steve, for pointing out something that should be so patently obvious, it ought to be filed under "U" for "Uh, DOIIIIEEE!"

Adoption doesn't happen in a vacuum. Prospective parents tend to practically have microscopes up their butts for over a year to make sure they fit to be adoptive parents (why, it seems, that level of scrutiny doesn't apply to FOSTER parents eludes me. I guess if children are only exposed to unfit adult role models for a few months to a year, they don't get as messed up, as I'm sure many Boy Scouts and Altar Boys will argue against).

Therefore, even if 99% of all gay couples were crack-smoking lederhosen-wearing it-puts-the-lotion-in-the-baskets creepazoids, it doesn't matter, because if the state's doing its job, they will never become adoptive parents, even if they applied in the first place. On the flip-flop if (in this ridiculous scenario) the remaining 1% of gay couples prove to be hunky-dory members of society, why wouldn't you want them raising orphaned children?

Oh, that's right, they might see a happy gay couple and then "turn" gay. You know how impressionable kids are. I remember the first time I really wanted to have sex with a girl in my high school so I took her on a date, we went to this restaurant run by a gay couple, and they seemed so cool with each other, my semi immeidately switched over from wanting chicks to dudes. Thank God we didn't stay for dessert, I'd be writing this in Gayslyvania right now!

It should be noted that the "experts" the State used to bolster these claims are shills for the religious right, and under cross-examination during the trial they basically cited the bible as their source for their information.

I'd be very curious what the foster kids have to say about being adopted.

Shouldn't they have any say in where they get to stay? After four years, you'd think they could've been transferred if they didn't approve of the current situation.

In a 53-page order that sets the stage for what could become a constitutional showdown, Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman permitted 47-year-old Frank Gill to adopt the 4- and 8-year-old boys he and his partner have raised since just before Christmas four years ago. A child abuse investigator had asked Gill to care for the boys temporarily; they were never able to return to their birth parents.

So the state of Florida was trying to argue that it was in the best interest of the children to remove them from the only home they'd ever known and put them back into the foster care system among strangers?

No wonder they lost.

"The state presented experts who argued that there was a higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among same-sex couples, that their relationships were less stable than those of heterosexuals, and that their children suffered a societal stigma."
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I could easily argue the exact same of Christian households. Remember the stories told by Dobson about his father and look how that turned out.

I bet if they would quit stigmatizing gays, their adopted children would suffer from "societal stigma".

I bet if they would give gay people their right to marry, their relationships would become more stable.

I bet if they would just get over their god damn selves and stopped harassing gay people the incidents of drug and alcohol abuse would decrease dramatically.

"The state presented experts who argued that there was a higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among same-sex couples, that their relationships were less stable than those of heterosexuals, and that their children suffered a societal stigma."

Hmmmm...okay, so our relationships are less stable (because we aren't allowed to marry, perhaps?), we abuse drugs and alcohol (unlike str8s!), and our children suffer stigma (from backward str8s and their unfortunate offspring). Seems to me all the fault they're outlining there can fall squarely at the feet of those members of our society who are bigoted towards gays. They keep us from marrying, harass both us and our children, and drive us to drink and do drugs. And this is an argument against *gays* adopting? Sounds more like a confession to me...

The whole through-the-looking-glass argument about the horrible "stigma" the poor children will suffer (if we don't continue to discriminate) was the same argument Virginia used to justify anti-miscegenation. Didn't work that time either.