O'Donnell outing shines light on Fla. adoption ban

Rosie O'Donnell

When Rosie O'Donnell came out recently as a lesbian parent, she inspired more than 100,000 e-mails to Florida state officials in support of the ACLU's campaign to have the law struck down. (AP Photo/Ed Betz)

by MIKE FLEMING

Some 100,000 e-mails have flooded state offices in Florida since Rosie O’Donnell came out recently as a lesbian, arguing that the state should throw out its law banning adoptions by gays.

But while O’Donnell’s coming out March 14 on ABC’s "Primetime Thursday" focused attention on the Florida law, the revelation was still met with a collective yawn: Three-quarters of people who know O’Donnell is gay said that it has no effect on their feelings towards her, according to a poll taken last week.

"I wanted there to be a reason [to come out]," O'Donnell said on the ABC program. "When I learned what was going on in Florida, I found that reason."

Response to the O’Donnell interview on ABC has been "overwhelming," said Eric Ferrero, public education director for the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project.

"I was surprised at how many people didn't know about the law at all, and they're having strong reactions to Florida's institutionalized discrimination," Ferrero said.

In conjunction with O'Donnell's televised revelation, the ACLU launched a national campaign March 11 against Florida’s 25-year-old law banning gays from adopting children. The effort includes publication of a paperback guide "Too High a Price," an e-mail drive to state officials and launching the Web site LetHimStay.com.

O'Donnell, who owns a home in Miami Beach and cares for a Florida foster child, wrote the introduction to the guide, which is geared to child welfare workers. She also mentions the Web site on her TV show, Ferrero said.

The LetHimStay.com outlines gay parents Steven Lofton and Roger Croteau's battle to keep "Bert," a 10-year-old they have cared for since infancy.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the state agency in charge of adoptions received 63,000 e-mails even before "Primetime Thursday" aired, officials said. Over the four days following the program, the two offices received an additional 50,000 e-mails, said Elizabeth Hirst, a spokesperson for Bush.

Calls and e-mails are still coming, said Kathleen Kearney, secretary of the state Department of Children & Families. Some 10 to 20 percent of respondents are from Florida, she said.

Bush, who is campaigning for re-election, isn't taking a public position on the adoption law, while his likely Democratic opponent, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, is heavily courting gay voters in the state and has said she supports overturning the law.

"The governor will abide by the law, and that's basically all we're saying at this time," Hirst said. "He has expressed that he is willing to look at the issue, but has not taken a stand either way."

Florida is the only state with a law prohibiting adoptions by all gays, though gays can serve as foster parents. Mississippi bars same-sex couples, but not gay singles, from adopting. Utah restricts all unmarried people from adoptions without specifying gays.

Anti-gay former beauty queen Anita Bryant led the 1977 "Save Our Children" campaign that pushed passage of the Florida measure. Now O'Donnell's star power and public support of Lofton and Croteau can change the tide against the law, Ferrero said.

"She is working with us to reach people on gay parenting who are not normally reached," Ferrero said. "People know and trust her, so she can reach the general public as well as child welfare workers who make decisions for foster kids."

Lofton and Croteau were also featured on "Primetime" and are among plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the state in 1999 by the ACLU to challenge the law's constitutionality.

The case moved to Atlanta's 11th District Court of Appeals after Judge James King ruled last August that the gay adoption ban is valid, preventing the case from reaching trial.

The poll also showed that among O’Donnell’s most popular audience -- American women between the ages of 35 and 44 -- 73 percent of the women questioned said that O’Donnell’s public coming out made no difference in their opinion of the talk-show host.

Ten percent said it improved their opinions, while 18 percent said their opinions of O'Donnell had worsened, according to the poll.

Some 2,017 adults were surveyed on-line between March 12-14 for the Witeck-Combs Communications/Harris Interactive study.

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