Religious right group push phony photo to make the case against gay adoption

The picture above symbolize how religious right groups demonize the lgbt community. According to the Orlando Sentinel's Scott Mawell:

On the left is the picture that the Florida Family Policy Council of Orlando, used to illustrate the gay couple that was awarded custody of a relative. It appeared under the headline: "FL judge violates law, places child in homosexual adoption" (on the right) is the actual couple.

 Maxwell writes an excellent piece on the recent situation involving a lesbian couple being awarded custody of one-year-old boy.

I wrote about the situation, focusing on how the right-wing Florida group the Liberty Counsel was attacking the ruling. But Maxwell includes some important details about the case which even I wasn't aware of:

Florida is the last state in the U.S. with an outright ban on gay adoption. And three court rulings in recent months suggest the archaic law may be on its last legs.

The rationale for preventing balanced, loving parents from adopting children — when the state has a backlog of needy children, no less — is hard to justify in concept.

And when you actually look at the specifics of human lives involved in real cases — the way Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia did last month — it's darn near impossible.

In considering the case, Judge Sampedro-Iglesia heard from family members, a child psychologist, the boy's preschool administrator, a social worker and the state-appointed Guardian ad Litem.

All of them, the judge wrote in her order, "testified in support of the adoption as being in the best interest of the child."

The state did not offer a single witness to rebut that claim.

"The only testimony elicited today," the judge said at the end of the hearing, "was that [the 1-year-old] is loved by these parents more than they even thought that someone could be loved."

So the judge ruled that he could stay with the two women — one of whom is related to the boy. (Child-welfare workers had taken him shortly after he was born. Alenier and Leon stepped up, offering to raise him — much to the delight of their extended family.)

I could say a lot about what the Florida Family Policy Council tried to do but Maxwell says it much better than I ever could:

These are the dirty tactics of Christianity's far-right warriors.

Not the majority of mainstream Christians, mind you. Not those who are focused on caring for their own families and practicing their own faith — but those who are obsessed with homosexuality.

These extremists wage their campaigns of intolerance based on deception and misrepresentation.

And they have the gall to do it in God's name.

On some twisted level, you can see why they have been reduced to misleading histrionics.

Because they are losing the fight.

Amen, Maxwell.