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ing all gay people from adopting children.
"There are 3,400 children in Florida foster
care in need of permanent homes,” attorney
Matt Coles said. “The state keeps these kids in
limbo, burdening a child welfare system already
in crisis, just so it can make a political statement
against lesbians and gay men.”
The A C L U argued that the Florida law vio
lates equal protection guarantees. “Fortunately
our Constitution says you can’t enact laws to
discriminate against a group of people,” Coles
said. "This law has nothing to do with child
welfare, and every responsible person in the
state knows it. It is shameful what the state has
done to its children in the name of tired myths
and stereotypes.”
The lawsuit, first filed in 1998, came before
the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after a
lower court judge dismissed the case without
allowing it to go to trial. “We are asking the fed
eral courts to protect both the children of Florida
who need loving, stable homes and their qualified
parents from the irrational prejudices of our state
legislators— prejudices that were placed in the
law a generation ago,” said Howard L. Simon,
A CLU of Florida executive director.
Even though the state prevents gay men and
lesbians from adopting, it frequently relies on
gay people to he foster parents to children in
need of stable homes. One of the three families
represented by the A C LU in the case are Port
landers Steven Lofton and Roger Croteau, who
are raising five children, including three foster
kids from Florida. Although the children never
have known any other family, they cannot be
adopted by the couple because of Florida’s law.
In another landhaark case involving a Port
lander, the A C LU urged U.S. Supreme Court
justices March 5 to reject a law forcing libraries
to censor constitutionally protected online
speech by adults as well as children. At issue is
the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which
requires any library receiving certain forms of
federal aid to install Web “blocking” programs
that censor a wide range of valuable material for
adults and minors.
“The lower court described in detail just how
flawed these Internet blocking programs are,”
attorney Chris Hansen said. "We are hopeful
that the Supreme Court will agree that the gov
ernment cannot force adults to use technology
that routinely blocks access to a wide range of
valuable Web sites.”
Last May, a three-judge panel of the U.S.
District Court in Philadelphia agreed with argu
ments made by the A C LU that blocking pro
grams cannot effectively screen out only mater
ial deemed “harmful to minors.” The court
called the software a “blunt instrument,” adding
that “the problems faced by manufacturers and
vendors of filtering software are legion."
The court supported its ruling with more
than 100 pages of detailed findings of fact,
which established that “at least tens of thou
sands” of Web pages are wrongly blocked by the
programs, including Web sites for the Knights of
Columbus, a Christian orphanage in Honduras
and several political candidates.
Significantly, the court cited the experience
of library patrons who said that if the law had
been in place they would not have been able to
access socially valuable material on a library
computer. Emma Rood, a 17-year-old Portland
lesbian attending Simon’s Rock College in
Massachusetts, told the lower court that the law
would have blocked her from finding informa
tion about human sexuality at her local library.
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5 0 3 . 2 3 8 . 6 0 3 6 e x t 109
Member SI PC
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OPB
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1 he Portland Gay Men’s Chorus fielded tele
phone calls at an Oregon Public Broadcast
ing pledge drive March 2.
The station asked viewers to make donations
during a broadcast of He Touched Me, which fea
tured gospel songs by Elvis Presley. Sadly, publi
cist Shannon Grosswiler said OPB received a
handful of complaints— fewer than 10 during
the program itself as well as “a few residual
calls”— from homophobic viewers.
"It was one of the best groups [we] ever had
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1-year-old organization for sexual minority
senior citizens settled on a new name—
Elder Resource Alliance— during its Feb. 5
meeting.
The group’s goals are to develop a resource
directory, establish speaking groups and fight
homophobia among health care and service
providers through cultural competency training.
The alliance’s next meeting will be held from
2 to 4 p.m. April 2 at the Friendly House Com
munity Center, 2617 N.W. Savier St.
r e a lt o r «
For more information contact Paul larrobinn at
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emcclary@friendlyhouseinc. org.
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ortland Parents, Families and Friends of Les
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Continued on Page 13
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Members of the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus take to the phones March 2 for Oregon Public
Broadcasting’s pledge drive
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