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CNN Live At Daybreak

Florida Judge Upholds Ban on Gays Adopting Kids

Aired August 31, 2001 - 07:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
VINCE CELLINI, CNN ANCHOR: A federal judge has upheld a Florida lawyer banning homosexuals from adopting children. In his ruling, federal Judge Lawrence King says the gay plaintiffs never disagreed with the state's contention that married heterosexual families provide a more stable home environment.

CNN's Kathy Slobogin visited the home of one plaintiff to hear his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DOUG HOUGHTON, FLORIDA FOSTER PARENT: Oscar came into my life kind of suddenly.

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Doug Houghton has raised Oscar since he was three. Houghton was a pediatric nurse who was treating Oscar in a clinic when the child's father, homeless and unemployed, gave him up. Oscar's mother is dead.

HOUGHTON: His father basically said I lost my apartment, I don't have any place, you know, to go and here I have a kid. I'm going to have to go, you know, stay with my parents or something. Do you want to take him?

SLOBOGIN: Now, Oscar is nine. Doug Houghton is the man he knows as dad.

HOUGHTON: Don't let anybody ever try to take this child away from me because now he's my whole world kind of centers around him.

SLOBOGIN: Houghton is Oscar's legal guardian. But for him, that's not enough. He wants to adopt Oscar but he can't because he's gay.

WAYNE SMITH, FLORIDA FOSTER PARENT: There's literally a question on the application and it says are you homosexual, yes or no? And if you check yes, the form tells you stop right there. You're disqualified. You're out of the game.

SLOBOGIN: Wayne Smith and Dan Skahen also want to adopt children, children who have nowhere else to go. They're licensed foster parents and have taken severely abused and neglected children like this 3-year-old into their home. DAN SKAHEN, FLORIDA FOSTER PARENT: Well, in the past year and a half, a little over a year and a half, we've had eight children through our house ranging in ages from seven months to 15 years old.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): These men live in Florida, one of three states, along with Mississippi and Utah, that ban homosexual adoptions. About half the states allow such adoptions, but it's a contentious issue. Around a dozen states have considered bans in recent years. Now, Houghton and others are bringing the fight out into the open with a federal lawsuit.

What do you think of this law in Florida?

HOUGHTON: I think it's crazy. I can't, I can't imagine judging any kind of a parent based on their sexuality. It really is irrelevant to me on whether I'm able to be a good parent or not.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): No Florida state officials would comment due to the litigation. But Ken Connor is a Florida attorney and president of the Family Research Council, which opposes gay adoption. He says the lawsuit is without merit.

KEN CONNOR, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: I think it has far less to do with the best interests of the child than it does with advancing the gay agenda.

SLOBOGIN: Connor says homosexual homes aren't ideal for children.

CONNOR: Well, I think the Florida legislature has concluded that children's best interests are served by ensuring that they have parents who are united in marriage. We all know and I think common sense tells us that children are benefited most when they have a mom and a dad.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Do you think it's harmful for a child to grow up without a mother and a father figure?

SMITH: I think that it's more harmful for kids to be neglected. I think it's more harmful for kids to be abandoned and I think it's more harmful for kids to be abused. And all of those things occur in all kinds of family settings.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): The plaintiffs say they should be judged on their own merits, not as members of a group.

SMITH: Dan and I are always clear to say in this lawsuit we're not asking for the right to adopt. We're just asking for the chance to be considered.

SLOBOGIN: Kathy Slobogin, CNN, Key West, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CELLINI: And now joining us to talk more about this issue, two guests. In Tallahassee, Florida, Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council. In New York, Matt Coles is the director of the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project. Gentlemen, both of you, good morning.

MATT COLES, LESBIAN & GAY RIGHTS PROJECT: Good morning.

CONNOR: Good morning.

CELLINI: I want to start with Matt. And Matt, part of the ruling, and this is from U.S. District Judge Lawrence King, who ruled that there is no fundamental right to adopt. And again, on his ruling, saying that the plaintiffs who had challenged the Florida law never disagreed with the state's contention that "married heterosexual families provide children with a more stable home environment, proper gender identification and less social stigmatization than homosexual homes."

Can you comment on the ruling and the language used?

COLES: Well, it's not true that we disagreed with it. We said to the judge we didn't think it was right but we understood it was beside the point in this case. And it is beside the point. This isn't about whether the 3,000 to 4,000 kids who are waiting for adoption in Florida are going to be adopted by married couples or they're going to be adopted by gay people. There are no married couples to adopt these kids.

In fact, 25 percent of the adoptions the state approves in Florida now are to single heterosexuals. But even at that, they still have thousands of kids waiting for adopt.

The choice here is do these kids go into homes like the homes that Doug Houghton and the other plaintiffs can provide, which everyone in the case agreed were wonderful homes, or do we bounce them from temporary placement to temporary placement and give them no homes at all? That's the issue.

CELLINI: Well, I don't think anyone disagrees with the love that can be provided in such homes. But when you talk about heterosexual singles adopting children, there may be a chance of a future married and -- marriage and then gender, there becomes the idea of gender roles now, a mother and a father as opposed to two mothers or two fathers and I think that's where some of the criticism is involved toward the law or with the law.

COLES: But Vince, that's no answer to all the thousands of kids who are waiting in Florida who are not going to be adopted by single heterosexuals either. There's simply not enough people who are willing to adopt. And to take a whole group of people, people like these plaintiffs, who do provide loving homes, and say you can't provide homes to these kids and instead we're going to keep them in institutions and bounce them from temporary placement to temporary placement, how is that in the kids' best interests?

CELLINI: Well, again, our guests today agreed to appear in a discussion form, not necessarily a debate form. So now I'm going to go to Ken Connor. And Ken, your reaction to the ruling?

CONNOR: Well, I think the judge was right and I think the Florida law is right because it recognizes that both moms and dads alike make a unique and important contribution to the physical, emotional and psychosocial development of their children.

Look, go on any playground in America today and you'll see the important differences that moms and dads contribute. Little Johnny is on the monkey bars, dad's saying go for it, Johnny, you can make it to the top. Mom's saying Johnny, please be careful.

There's a balance to be struck. Moms and dads both provide important roles and the problem with gay adoption is it trivializes the importance that both genders can make to the development of their children.

CELLINI: Well, I think that, you know, a mother and, two mothers or two fathers can also provide that type of guidance. And the bigger question, if these people can provide love and caring for a child who might otherwise be abused by, say, someone who's a substance abuser or someone who physically abuses, then what's the problem?

CONNOR: Well, I think, frankly, you're positing a question that assumes the fallacy of only one alternative. Florida law says that it believes that there ought to be a preference for a two parent, marriage based family when it comes to adoption. And, again, the roles that moms and dads make are profoundly important. They make different contributions. The judge recognized, for example, that homosexual environments are far less stable than married environments, that there are problems with sexual identity confusion and there is still a problem with social stigmatization for the children.

That being the case, the judge says that there certainly is a rational basis and a connection with a legitimate state interest in this case and I think the Florida law makes a lot of common sense.

CELLINI: Well, it may make sense to some but not to others and that's where the debate continues.

Gentlemen, we'd like to thank both of you for talking about this particular ruling. Have a great morning. Thank you once again.

CONNOR: Thank you.

COLES: Thank you.

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