Cynthia Nixon to appear in Fla. campaign to overturn gay adoption ban

As Florida's LGBT activists continue to await a court decision that could eventually negate the state's gay adoption ban, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida has turned up the heat on the debate as it is set to launch a three-year campaign in coalition with a number of national, state and local organizations.

Actress Cynthia Nixon will be among the many activists scheduled to attend the campaign's official kick-off at the Shore Club in Miami Beach on Saturday. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, state Sen. Nan Rich [D-Sunrise] and state Rep. Mary Brandenburg [D-West Palm Beach] will also be among those in attendance.

"In a time when great studies are being made to lift this absurd and discriminatory ban, we must see this for what it is - the only humane and compassionate thing to do for the children," Nixon said in a press release. "Florida should be leading the country, not continuing to uphold this insidious law. I am proud to stand alongside the ACLU to call for this law's appeal."

ACLU of Florida's fight against the country's only outright gay adoption ban - a piece of legislation introduced in 1977 at the height of Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children" campaign - has been ongoing for years, but it gained an important victory in Nov. 2008 when Miami-Dade circuit judge Cindy Lederman found the ban unconstitutional. This decision allowed Martin Gill to adopt two boys he and his partner have raised since 2004.

The state's attorney general immediately appealed Lederman's decision, sending Gill's status as the two boys' guardian into a legal purgatory with the 3rd District Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument in August. A decision from that court that could possibly result in the boys being removed from the Gill home and placed back into foster care, will likely come down in the next couple of months. The case is expected to eventually land in the state Supreme Court.

When EDGE spoke with Gill earlier today, he said each Wednesday morning brings unease, as it is anticipated this is the day the court will announce its decision.

"How do you live normally knowing that, on a weekly basis, the kids you've raised over the course of five years could be taken away from you?" he said as he noted foster parents lack visitation rights in such instances. "If they left my home tomorrow, I'd have no right to ever see them again and it's not that easy to deal with."

"I just don't think there could be any good in taking them back from us," Gill said. "I try not to believe that we can lose. I have faith that [the arguments presented] will carry us through."

Robert Rosenwald, director of the ACLU of Florida's LGBT Advocacy Project and lead attorney in the case, said he feels the time is long overdue for the Gill family to no longer rely on hope alone. He hopes the project's ambitious, statewide public education campaign will sway public opinion and increase visibility for the legal battle through statewide training sessions that will inform activists how to talk about the issue with media, co-workers and friends.

"While we wait for this decision, the Gill family continues to bond, and the children are doing great, better every day," Rosenwald said as he talked about the Gill boys, who are now five and nine. "This campaign is designed to bring the rest of the state of Florida to a place of understanding on this issue. These kids are happy and healthy, living the American dream after coming from a background of neglect and drug-addicted parents. It would be a fate of cruelty to remove them from the only family they've ever known."

The first adoption training took place in Miami in October; the next session is scheduled to take place in Orlando on Jan. 23.