You make your happiness
I’ll probably get crap from people for suggesting this....
But perhaps if you live in Florida and want to adopt children, you should move. The state has made it very clear how they feel about gays and children.
I know... we should stay and fight for our rights and all that... but at some point, DON’T YOU WANT TO TRY TO BE HAPPY FOR THE TIME YOU ARE HERE ON THIS EARTH?
Sorry for shouting, but that’s the only way I can get through to some people. I don’t like to pack up and run from a fight either. But, I look at things a bit differently now.
I no longer expect marriage to be something Kent and I will ever have. I’ve given up my dream of being equal in this country. American freedom and democracy is BULLSHIT. It doesn’t exist for ALL THE PEOPLE. It just doesn’t.
That being said, does that have to ruin everything else in my life? The answer is, it will if I let it. And I don’t want to do that.
So, my advice to the gay couples of Florida is that, if adoption is something you need in your life to be happy, move to a state where you can adopt and be happy.
To the people out there who think I’m a “coward”, then you stay and fight the good fight. I’m tired of the fight decade after decade. It’s my turn to be happy.
DAYTONA BEACH -- About five years ago, Stacey Reid and her lesbian partner started daydreaming about the pitter-patter of tiny feet in their home.
They successfully completed a 10-week adoption and foster care program that included fingerprinting and criminal background checks.
Then they were told to forget about a child because they’re gay.
“I felt helpless,” said Reid, who is 36 and has two teenagers from a previous marriage to a man. “There’s so many children we could help if they’d just let us. We’re so stable financially I could quit my job and be with them 100 percent of the time.”
Reid and her partner of eight years were mistakenly told they couldn’t be foster parents, which is legal in Florida for homosexuals. But a Florida law on the books since 1977 bans gays and lesbians from adopting children, the only such state law in the nation.
Now that law, which has been challenged unsuccessfully several times, seems as firmly entrenched as ever. On Jan. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a constitutional challenge to the statute and made no comment about its rejection. (source)
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There is so much happening in our country right now Steph, that is so dehumanizing and degrading to gay people. It's ugly.
What does it say about the freedom we have in this country when the people of a state will vote on taking rights away from a group of tax paying citizens and making sure, via a state constitutional amendment, that they will never realize equal rights?
In other words, with the power and full backing of law, they are SECOND CLASS CITIZENS. Our government and this country has become much less in the last ten years.
I don't blame you one bit for moving to Canada. I honestly wish many times that I could leave as well. I love my home and the place I live in, but, if Kent got a job offer in Canada that was at least equal to what we have now, I would seriously consider turning in my United States citizenship for a country who actually valued me as a citizen and didn't try to make me into some monster to be demonized.
I wish you happiness in your new home in Canada. :-)
At first, Lynette and I waved our "good fight" flag -- for a few weeks -- but now, we're planning a move to Canada in the next year or so. We live in Oklahoma, a state that is so saturated with intolerance and bigotry that it makes us sick. I'm not used to this -- I'm a native Californian -- and I want out. I'm tired of the 120-ft. crosses, and the lurid looks from the "uncle dads" here. We had a Holy Union at a More Light Presbyterian church in Tulsa 4 years ago, but we want to be legally married.
I agree with you.