Openly gay Sex and the City star and LGBT rights advocate Cynthia Nixon will be on hand to help the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) kick off a three-year campaign to end Florida’s ban on adoption by gay people. The event will be held Jan. 9 at the Shore Club in Miami Beach starting at 7:30 p.m. Nixon will be joined by U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; Florida Senator Nan Rich; Florida Representative Mary Brandenburg; Howard Simon, ACLU of Florida Executive Director; Robert Rosenwald, ACLU-FL LGBT Advocacy Project Director; and Martin Gill, an ACLU plaintiff.
The ACLU of Florida’s LGBT Advocacy Project and the national ACLU LGBT Project sued the state on behalf of Gill and two brothers who he had been fostering at the state’s request for four years—the only stable home the children had ever known. In a landmark November 2008 decision, a Miami judge ruled that the two boys, now ages five and nine, could remain with the adoptive father, who is gay.
The state appealed to the Third District Court of Appeals, where the case has been argued. Gill is still waiting for a decision from the Third District Court of Appeals regarding his lawsuit.
ACLU’s campaign is getting financial support from the Tides Foundation’s State Equality Fund, the John C. Graves Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation of Broward, the GLBT Community Projects Fund at Dade Community Foundation, and the Scott Opler Foundation.
In addition to supporting the ACLU lawsuit, the campaign will provide training to coach people on how to talk about the adoption ban. Florida is the only state that specifically outlaws adoptions by homosexuals.
