Star's Biddle Calls Out Drozda For Anti-Gay Bigotry

Star editorial writer RiShawn Biddle astutely concludes that Sen. Jeff Drozda's effort to amend an adoption reform bill, SB 199, with language prohibiting "homosexuals" from adopting children amounts to bigotry against gays. Biddle notes Drozda's amendment singles out gays as the only "nontraditional family" unit unfit to adopt children. He writes:

One has to wonder whether state Sen. Jeff Drozda hands are rather idle these days. What else would explain his effort to ban gay adoption by amending the adoption restrictions plan contained in Senate Bill 199? . . .

Why is Drozda even bothering with such a bald and outright attempt to codify bigotry? It isn't as if the state Supreme Court hasn't dealt with the issue and made it clear that gay parents can adopt under state law. Nor does the state constitution ban gay couples from adopting; as in the case of gay marriage, the state isn't supposed to refuse to recognize the rights and privileges of gay couples to adopt. As far as evidence that gays are somehow unfit to provide homes to children who have none? Neither the American Academy of Pediatrics nor the Child Welfare League of America have found evidence that children of gay adoptive parents fare any worse than those in loving homes.

More importantly, Drozda doesn't deal with the reality that the meaning of family is no longer just one man and one woman with children -- if that definition was ever the only one society recognized in the first place. Forget the sexual orientation of any adoptive parent or even how the child came into their homes and Drozda's amendment could just as easily target any nontraditional family, including even a family in which a man is raising a child not conceived from his own seed, but who he has raised while living together with his mother.

If homosexuals aren't deserving of adoption rights, neither are those in other nontraditional adoptive arrangements. But Drozda doesn't push to ban other such arrangements in his amendments and doesn't do so on the basis of preserving tradition. This is not an argument he has made publicly, even though his stance on the matter of gay adoption has been public . . .

Drozda doesn't have any real problems with nontraditional parents adopting children. Not at all. His amendment targets one group and one group only. The only interpretation one can take from the amendment is that Drozda is bigoted against gays. Period. If that is so, it would be nice if he was at least honest about it instead of hiding behind the dry language of legislation.

Let's hope this is the beginning of a trend among mainstream reporters to call out the mean-spirited, bigoted agenda of the religious right to legislate discrimination against Indiana's gay and lesbian citizens. Incidentally, Drozda did not offer his amendment to SB 199 today when Sen. Pat Miller (R-Indianapolis) called the bill down on second reading. This latest effort to discriminate against gays and lesbians is dead for now, but don't be surprised to see it rear its ugly head again.