Who knew 16 words could rip families apart, cause loneliness and restrict some families from forming?

“No person eligible to adopt under this statute may adopt if that person is a homosexual,” according to Florida’s legislative statute 63.042.

“The existence of this language in state law dehumanizes every single one of us,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, during last Sunday afternoon’s “Our Families, Our Future: A Town Hall for All Floridians,” at the First Congregational Church in Fort Lauderdale.

“People you will never meet — legislators whose names you do not know — are making decisions about your family, [and are sending] a message daily that you are less of a parent; that you love your children less [than heterosexual caretakers],” she said at the forum.

The Town Hall discussion raised the question that will also be asked in Tallahassee within the next 60 days.

Florida is the only state with a legalized ban on gay and lesbian adoption, according to materials presented at the Town Hall meeting, yet it’s also one of the top five states in the country for highest number of children in the adoption system.

According to the state’s Department of Children and Families, there are 4,642 children available for adoption; families have been identified for more than 2,727 of them. The remaining 1,915 are waiting to be placed in a home.

The Town Hall discussion raised the question that will also be asked in Tallahassee within the next 60 days: “Should gays and lesbians be allowed to adopt children in Florida?”

The amended adoption bill S206 was filed in the Senate in December 2006, and was introduced to the Children, Families and Elder Affairs judiciary on March 6, 2007. If passed, the bill would provide the standard for selecting an adoptive parent; require an individual assessment of the prospective adoptive parents of a minor; eliminate the ban on adoption by a person who is a homosexual; and provide an effective date, as stated in the text of the proposal.

Considering the question of whether or not non-straight parents can adopt were four panel members: Susie Coleman, a family therapist who compiled statistics on adoptees in LGBT families; Gail Tapscott, a reverend in a South Florida church where all sexual orientations are welcomed; Tim Birrittella, who spoke on behalf of his partner and daughter about the importance of equality; and Smith. Broward County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger moderated the event.

“If it’s a loving family, that’s all children need to strive and grow,” Gunzburger said.

Yet the state is making it less about kids in need, and more about their [potential] parents’ backgrounds, Melissa Fojtik, a community activist and gay adoption advocate, said.

Many gay and lesbian parents-to-be go out of the state or country to adopt, Fojtik said, but their younger counterparts who want to have a loving family do not have that choice.

“It’s not about furthering the gay community, because we can go out of Florida [but these 4,000 kids cannot],” Fojtik said while balancing her two-month-old adopted daughter in her arms. She also has a two-year-old daughter from an out-of-state adoption.

And, Fojtik said, if people are going elsewhere to adopt, those sitting in foster care face another system as they grow older: the juvenile justice system.

Research has found that a child who does not get placed in a home is seven times more likely to be placed into a juvenile delinquency facility, Fojtik said.

For now, the closest a lesbian or gay mom or dad can get to adoption [in Florida] is to become a foster parent, but as one tearful audience member pointed out, it is hard to fall in love with a child and then have the kid taken away.

Many people, then, may fear becoming foster parents, and prefer trying other ways to step around adoption laws. But it can be costly.

Birrittella and his partner Meredith, residents of Pinecrest in Miami-Dade County, shelled out $100,000 to have their daughter. The couple decided to first choose an egg donor, and then a surrogate mother. Emma was born about two years ago in California.

“It’s insane [that we have to pay all of this money], while heterosexual families can do this for free,” he said, adding that the pair are not advocates, “just two guys with a family.”

However, the heterosexual society at-large still finds the gay family confusing.

Birrittella said that when he and Meredith go to places such as the grocery store, people always stop them and ask “Is the mommy off today?” At first they were not sure how to answer — as they were never flag-waving, “we’re here, we’re queer” folks — and they did not want to lie, so they told the truth: “She has two dads.”

Emma, who ran up and down the aisles of the church during the meeting, appears to be a happy kid.

Charlotte Quandt, a 21-year-old from St. Petersburg, is also a successful, happy, adopted child.

“I’m a product of a gay family, and I’m fine,” she told the crowd of about 150 people.

Smashing the idea that raising children in an LGBT household equates to raising homosexuals, Quandt pointed out that she is not gay. Her sister, who is married to a marine, is not gay. Her brother is not gay.

Other stereotypes were also broken down.

“Aren’t kids more likely to be abused [in gay- or lesbian-parented homes]?” one audience member asked the panel.

No, according to research heterosexuals are in fact more likely to abuse, Coleman said. Playing on the ignorance of the general public, legislators often pull or push the fear card in the faces of the voters, she said.

For example, Coleman — who is lesbian and the mother of adopted children — pointed to John Stemberger, a member of Florida Family Action, a conservative lobby group.

An avid anti-gay-marriage lobbyist, Stemberger was quoted in the St. Petersburg Times as saying, “Now the picture is not two guys in holy matrimony, in bed together, so to speak. Now the picture is three little children sandwiched in between them."

The question of gender roles also came up at the town meeting, which was another idea Stemberger pondered in the February 2006 article.

He asked, “What are two lesbian moms going to teach a little girl about how to love a man?”

Coleman said just like any other family, those being raised in a same-sex parent household will have their aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, friends and so on, to lend diversity.

Gay families are families, she said. “It’s only to the outside world that they’re not family.”

Agreeing, Smith reminded those in attendance that the proposed amendment to Florida legislation is not going to change what is already in the hearts of these families.

“It’s not about having us be told [that] we are legitimate; it’s about whether or not the government will recognize it, and its legality.”

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