The attorney representing a man challenging Florida’s ban on gay adoption calls the Magic City “crucial grounds” in securing a win. Robert Rosenwald, Jr. is the Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Florida LGBT Project and counsel to Martin Gill, a Miami man who is fighting to adopt the two foster children he’s raised for the past four years.
The ACLU is kicking off this month a three-year campaign to teach citizens how to advocate against Florida’s gay adoption ban. One of the campaign’s first stops is in Orlando and Rosenwald says that’s no coincidence, calling the city “a kind of purplish area” where the conservative north meets the progressive south.
“Orlando and the entire I-4 corridor is where those sides collide,” he said. “Any campaign you hope to win in the State of Florida has to include a victory in the I-4 corridor with Orlando at its heart, so we consider that crucial grounds in order for us to sustain a win.”
He said the project wants to educate straight people about gay families and train gay people on how to talk about gay families in public.
“Our goals are to create a public opinion climate that would allow the Florida Supreme Court to affirm our trial court decision ruling that the ban on gay people adopting is unconstitutional and also to head off a new constitutional amendment by our opponents in the event that we do win at the Florida Supreme Court,” Rosenwald said.
Although the Orlando town meeting is a relatively early stop in a campaign scheduled to last three years, Rosenwald said he wouldn’t be surprised if it returns to Orlando and the trainings are designed to last beyond the one-day meeting.
“The purpose of this meeting is to create a local group that will continue to work with what people are trained to do at town hall meetings,” he said. “They’ll continue to train speakers while getting people ready to fight a [potential] conditional amendment, so the work will continue.”
Orlando’s town hall meeting runs from 7 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 22 at the First Unitarian Church of Orlando. The adoption training session is Saturday, Jan. 23 from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Marriott Orlando Downtown. Pre-registration is required online but both events are free of charge. The training session is for all ages. GLAAD is leading the session for adults 18 and up, while the Family Equality Council will run a concurrent session for youth ages 3 to 17.
