Talk Show Host Pushes for Homosexual Adoptions
By Lawrence Morahan
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
March 14, 2002

(CNSNews.com) - When talk-show host and activist Rosie O'Donnell declares her homosexuality publicly for the first time on "Primetime" Thursday, she will use the occasion to push for the abolition of laws that prevent homosexuals from adopting children in Florida.

According to a transcript of the pre-taped interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer published on the Drudge Report, O'Donnell describes herself as "a really good mother" who has every right to parent a child as a homosexual.

"You know, it takes a lot for a gay person to become an adoptive parent," said O'Donnell, who has a home in Miami Beach. "It takes a lot to become a foster parent ... And for the state of Florida to tell anyone who's willing, capable, and able to do that, that they're unworthy, is wrong."

The talk show host also is pressing her case on a website produced by the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, called lethimstay.com.

"If you are among the many policy makers confronted with efforts to restrict gay parenting, learn the facts first," O'Donnell urges caseworkers. "And if you are not directly involved in these issues, involve yourself directly. Talk to your friends, family, and colleagues about the children and families who are affected by restrictions on gay parenting."

O'Donnell's stand comes as Florida's gubernatorial race is heating up, and as the American Civil Liberties Union presses a federal appeals court to overturn the state's ban on adoptions by homosexuals.

O'Donnell hosted a fundraiser in December for former Attorney General Janet Reno, a supporter of homosexual adoptions who is challenging Republican Gov. Jeb Bush for the governorship.

Florida is the only state with a law prohibiting both homosexual couples and homosexual individuals from adopting children. In August, a lower court judge in Miami upheld the law, which the state legislature passed in 1977. Two states, Mississippi and Utah, prohibit same-sex couples from adopting.

O'Donnell is both a foster parent and an adoptive parent. Florida law does not prevent homosexuals from adopting in other states and moving to Florida, as O'Donnell has. Nor does it prevent homosexuals from being foster parents. But it prevents homosexual foster parents who are residents from taking the next step to adoption in Florida.

O'Donnell failed in an attempt to adopt one of her foster children, who eventually was placed with a married couple.

Questions for Sawyer

Family groups denounced O'Donnell's "crusade" to overturn the Florida law.

Concerned Women for America, the country's largest public policy women's organization, said Sawyer should have asked O'Donnell more hardball questions, such as why O'Donnell would seek to create a home that is fatherless by design?

"The Primetime interview has all the earmarks of yet another media celebration of homosexuality, just like Ellen DeGeneres' TV 'coming out' in 1997 and the hype over a mythical gay gene before that," CWA President Sandy Rios said.

"Already, a cover story in People magazine is hailing Rosie for her 'brave new step.' Truth is, Rosie is no hero, and the media's politically correct push for homosexual adoption will only place more innocent children at risk," Rios said.

Dr. Paul Cameron, director of the Family Research Institute in Colorado Springs, Colo., recently published a content analysis of 57 testimonies of children of homosexuals in the scientific journal, Psychological Reports.

The testimonies were gathered by two homosexual researchers, "so whatever bias there is, is clearly 'in favor,'" Cameron said.

The children not only knew that the researchers were homosexual, but they also knew that what they said would get back to their homosexual parent.

"You don't have to do much reading between the lines to see that these children had a heavy load to bear. Instability of living circumstances, including co-parents being changed every so often, emotional distress and the need for secrecy were the most common reported problems," he said.

The homosexual adoption debate rages in other states as well. The Nebraska Supreme Court this week rejected an attempt by a female same sex couple to adopt a four-year-old boy, after one of the women became pregnant through artificial insemination.

The ACLU brought the petition for adoption in what family groups saw as an obvious attempt to bypass Nebraska's constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2000 banning same sex marriage. The ACLU said it will meet Mar.16 to decide whether to appeal.

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