None of the ignominious arguments mounted by the Florida attorney general's office circumvents the cold reality of 3,535.

At last count, 3,535 children languished in state custody in need of adoptive parents. Yet the attorney general's office defended a law prohibiting gay adoption as if Florida faced a stark choice between "homosexual behaving" parents and households of the Ozzie and Harriet kind.

In Florida, 3,535 foster kids wonder what the hell happened to Ozzie and the Mrs.

The attorney general's lawyers know Ozzie's a no show. But they'd rather consign foster kids to the perpetual custody of an overwhelmed, underfunded, scandal-racked bureaucracy than admit to the underlying fallacies of the anti-gay adoption law.

They're not only defending unfounded discrimination against gays. They're perpetuating an unconscionable transgression toward foster children.

Florida law doesn't bar gays from providing foster homes for cast off kids. They just can't adopt those same children.

Miami Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman found that 30 years of research has undercut the premise of the 1977 law. In her summary of facts, Lederman said, "Based on the evidence presented from experts from all over this country and abroad, it is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent. Sexual orientation no more leads to psychiatric disorders, alcohol and substance abuse, relationship instability, a lower life expectancy or sexual disorders than race, gender, socio-economic class or any other demographic characteristic."

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