Charlie Crist: Pig Roasts Yes, Gay Adoption No.

Big Charlie has "no second thoughts" about denying gay folks an opportunity to adopt children who have been through a TPR proceeding. The issue is coming to a head in Judge Cindy Lederman's courtroom this morning as Charlie Auslander goes to trial on behalf of a gay man seeking to adopt two children:

On Wednesday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman will begin a trial over Gill's petition to adopt the two half-siblings. Their mother and respective fathers lost their rights to raise them in 2006.

Opposing Gill are the Florida Department of Children & Families and the state attorney general's office. Neil Skene, a DCF special counsel, said he couldn't discuss the Gill adoption, citing the confidentiality of adoption cases. He said that, in general, DCF ''is obliged by statute to oppose the adoption'' when any potential adoptive parent discloses that he or she is gay. The attorney general defends state laws that are challenged, Skene said.

Gov. Charlie Crist said Tuesday that he is not reconsidering the adoption ban. ''No second thoughts,'' he said.

Currently, 3,270 Florida foster children are available for adoption statewide, including 415 in Miami-Dade, 229 in Broward and 13 in Monroe counties, said DCF spokeswoman Erin Geraghty. Many of the children have special needs, like mental illness or developmental disabilities.

The challenge to Florida's law -- which was approved in 1977 amid a heated battle over the civil rights of gay men and women -- will play out in Lederman's small courtroom in Miami's Juvenile Justice Center.

Gill's trial will feature dueling scholars; lawyers for both sides say they intend to present academic research to prove their cases.

State leaders say the stakes are high.

''This case involves issues of great public importance in that [Gill] is challenging a state statute's validity on constitutional grounds,'' Assistant Attorney General Valerie J. Martin wrote in court pleadings.

In court records, state leaders maintain they are upholding public morality and working to ''encourage optimal family structure by seeking to place adoptive children in homes that have both a mother and a father; and in promoting the moral, emotional, mental and physical well-being of minor children,'' Martin wrote.

Gill's attorneys, and lawyers who will represent the two children, insist there is no ''reliable scientific research'' concluding that children fare better in families with heterosexual parents. And without such proof, they say, the state is discriminating against them.

''Florida's statutory gay adoption ban is a constitution-breaching whipsaw of the innocent,'' wrote Charles Auslander, a Children's Trust chief and one of the boys' lawyers. ``It prevents children innocently placed with these foster caregivers from achieving permanency for a reason entirely beyond the power of the child to remedy.''

The two boys, whose names are being withheld to protect their privacy, were raised by the same mother, whose parental rights were severed in 2006. Court records say the mother used cocaine and refused to testify against one of the boys' fathers when he physically abused them.

Gill, 47, and his 34-year-old partner took custody of the half-brothers in December 2004. The boys live with Gill, his partner, and his partner's teenage son in North Miami. Gill's partner is not being named to protect the privacy of his birth son, who shares his name.

`BOYS THRIVING'

In his adoption petition, Gill said ``the boys are thriving physically, emotionally and intellectually.''

When the boys entered foster care, ''they both had peeling scalps because of ringworm, and [the older boy] barely spoke for the first month and was significantly behind his peers developmentally,'' records say.

Recently, Gill said, he had the two boys write down the new surnames they will be given after adoption. The 8-year-old had a look of panic, at first, because he had barely mastered writing the name he was given at birth.

''But then I looked down,'' Gill added, 'and he had a big look of contentment. He spent the next hour writing his new name. `We're going to have the same last name,' '' Gill says the boy said. ' `That's going to make us a family.' That just broke my heart,'' Gill added.

Hilarie Bass, managing partner for the law firm Greenberg Traurig, who was appointed by Lederman to represent the boys, recommended in a report that Lederman grant the adoption petition.

IN GILL'S CORNER

''Upon my visit to the home, I observed the minor children to be happy, healthy, well-adjusted, well-groomed, polite and energetic kids,'' Bass wrote. 'Both . . . referred to [Gill] and [his partner] as `Dad.' ''

A court-appointed guardian also has recommended that Gill be allowed to adopt the boys, records say.

So let's see, the parents lost rights to the children in a TPR proceeding. Hilarie Bass, the children's court-appointed attorney, supports the adoption. So does the guardian ad litem. And the most that DCF Special Counsel Neil Skene can muster in defense is that the DCF is "obligated by statute" to oppose the adoption. But Big Charlie has "no second thoughts." I wonder why?

In light of legendary Judge Joe Eaton's passing, I hope Judge Lederman shows the courage and strength of conviction that Judge Eaton did for so many years. We need more Joe Eatons on the bench.

Judge Lederman, this is your warrior moment.