Gay Adoption Ruling More a Victory for the Kids

In Miami, Save Dade aims to protect gay people from discrimination. So you'd think, on a day like today, the group would tally one point for themselves on the old civil rights scoreboard. A Miami-Dade Court ruled there's "no rational basis" for prohibiting gay adoption this morning and, yeah, at least temporarily, this is a loooong overdue symbol of hope for devoted gay parents. But today isn't about waving rainbow flags or patting GLBT activists on the back, says Save Dade Director CJ Ortuño. "In my opinion," he says thoughtfully, "This is really a victory for the kids."

He's right. In Florida there are 22,000 children in state care, waiting to be adopted. Four thousand more are hanging in limbo at a foster home. That's enough lonesome, abandoned kids to fill a whole town. And Riptide's gonna go out on a limb and say they'd do much better with stable, committed 47-year old gay man and his partner, than crossing fingers, hoping for that perfect white picket fence family to swoop them into normalcy. Martin Gill and his partner aren't straight, but they've got a whole lot of love.

 The ironic part is this: Department of Children & Families -- which is supposed to defend an protect kids -- will now seek to prevent Gill's foster sons from being adopted by the only father they've ever known. Something doesn't seem right about it.