Thanks to a friend who had been watching TV and come across a new documentary called ‘We Are Dad’, I recently became acquainted with a story of discrimination that is both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Perhaps some of you are already familiar with the case, but like myself, I’m sure some of you aren’t. At any rate, it’s worthy of shining the spotlight on it in hopes that more people will continue being vocal about the prejudices gays and their families face from the rabid right.

The story itself is about a gay couple Steven Lofton and Roger Croteau and their five HIV-positive foster children. In a recent article at Gay & Lesbian Times, the background of the story is given along with an interview of the director of ‘We are Dad’. Three of the children began their fostering in Florida, the prior residence of Lofton and Croteau before they made the cross country move to Portland, Oregon due to the need to be closer to Lofton’s elderly parents three years ago. Upon taking up residence, their family swelled to five children, though the three fostered out in Florida remained subject to the Florida laws and supervision.

Here’s where the story gets ugly. Apparently Bert, age 10, one of the three Florida children they have fostered since infancy has stopped testing positive for HIV, so Florida has deemed him adoptable. The kicker being that Florida is the only state that has a blanket ban on gay adoptive rights, which the Supreme Court has refused to consider:

On Jan. 10, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case of Lofton v. State of Florida, which challenged Florida’s ban on adoption by gay couples. The court declined by a 6-6 vote to reconsider an earlier 2-1 decision in 2004 by a three-member panel of the appeals court in Atlanta, Ga., which upheld the law. The ACLU, who filed challenge to the law in 1999, asked the Supreme Court to hear the appeal.

Florida is the only state with a blanket law prohibiting gays and lesbians from adopting children, and it stems from Anita Bryant’s 1977 “Save Our Children” campaign, which repealed the Dade County gay rights law. Bryant’s actions built an impetus against gay adoption in Florida.

Apparently to the people claiming to fight for ‘family values’, the only time it’s okay for children to be in long standing custodial supervision of gays is when the child is tainted with an ailment that makes them less normal. According to Lethimstay.com, a website dedicated to raising awareness of the struggles in the gay parenting community with regards to fostering and adoptions, it seems that since Bert is now a healthy adoptable child, the family that raised him is no longer suitable for him:

Every few weeks, a letter comes from the state, giving an update on the status of finding another family to adopt Bert. Because he no longer tests positive for HIV and is under the age of 14, Bert is deemed “adoptable.” Steve and Roger are legally prohibited from adopting him because of Florida’s ban. So the state continues its effort to find him another home, even though this is the only family he’s ever known…even though, like all five of the kids, he’s already home.

Anyways, I’d encourage people to take a look at this website and catch the documentary ‘We Are Dad’ if you can.

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I can’t even think of anything to say. From OutRage!:

Two gay teenagers were publicly executed in Iran on 19 July 2005 for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality. […]

Iran enforces Islamic Sharia law, which dictates the death penalty for gay sex.

One youth was aged 18 and the other was a minor under the age of 18. They were only identified by their initials, M.A. and A.M.

They admitted to having gay sex (probably under torture) but claimed in their defence that most young boys had sex with each other and that they were not aware that homosexuality was punishable by death.

Prior to their execution, the teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes.

Their length of detention suggests that they committed the so-called offences more than a year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16.

Under the Iranian penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be hanged.

Three other young gay Iranians are being hunted by the police, but they have gone into hiding and cannot be found. If caught, they will also face execution.

Direland has the best article on this I’ve read. This atrocity has been getting more attention than previous ridiculous Iranian execution of teens, possibly because the photos (which you can see at Direland) are so vivid.

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