The patriots and heroes of the ACLU have been fighting hard to overturn the florida ban on Same sex, or gay individuals adopting. The case they have laid out is serious, well researched and strong.
There is an excellent diary about it on Kos. The gist of it is;
To make the case that Florida’s ban was based not on science but on ignorance (at best), we assembled what is probably the finest collection of child welfare, psychology, sociology and medical experts on these issues ever presented to a court. They included (among others): Dr. Michael Lamb, a world-renowned expert on children’s development, who is formerly the Chief of the Section on Social and Emotional Development at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and now chair of the Department of Psychology at Cambridge University; Dr. Anne Peplau, a Professor of Psychology at UCLA and a leading authority on couple relationships; Susan Cochran, a psychologist and epidemiologist at UCLA's Department of Public Health, and a leading authority on the demographics of health and psychology; and Dr. Frederick Berlin from Johns Hopkins, probably America’s foremost authority on child sexual abuse.
We used this remarkable cast to establish not just that the state was wrong about gay people as parents, but that no thinking person who understood the science does — or could — disagree. In that, our experts were materially aided by the experts for the state.
Here’s what our team established: The science does show that while gay people as a group have higher rates of depression and substance abuse, other demographic characteristics (including ethnicity and income) correlate with similar or even higher rates. However, these groups are not excluded from adopting. Those problems occur in every population group. That is why adoption systems are designed to screen individuals and not to rely on group generalizations.
This has to be overturned. It is the worst kind of legislation based on fear, ignorance, and bigotry. If you are as proud of the ACLU and their efforts as I am, send them some love today.
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