Judge Rules Against Florida Gay Adoption Ban
Category Friends, Life, and Love, News
Tags: adoptions,gay adoption,gay marriage,gay marriage ban
It’s about time someone stood up for all of the gays and lesbians in this community, especially regarding this issue. I believe that a child can be brought up with love, respect, and dignity in a gay relationship, just as they can in a heterosexual one. Why should they be discriminated against because of sexual orientation? All children deserve a good home and if it so happens to be with a gay couple, more power to them! Kudos to this judge!!
MIAMI – A judge on Tuesday overturned a strict Florida law that blocks gay people from adopting children, declaring there was no legal or scientific reason for sexual orientation alone to prohibit anyone from adopting.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman said the 31-year-old law violates equal protection rights for the children and their prospective gay parents, rejecting the state’s arguments that there is “a supposed dark cloud hovering over homes of homosexuals and their children.”
She noted that gay people are allowed to be foster parents in Florida. “There is no rational basis to prohibit gay parents from adopting,” she wrote in a 53-page ruling.
Florida is the only state with an outright ban on gay adoption. Arkansas voters last month approved a measure similar to a law in Utah that bans any unmarried straight or gay couples from adopting or fostering children. Mississippi bans gay couples, but not single gays, from adopting.
The ruling means that Martin Gill, 47, and his male partner can adopt two brothers, ages 4 and 8, whom he has cared for as foster children since December 2004.
“I’ve never seen myself as less than anybody else,” Gill said. “We’re very grateful. Today, I’ve cried the first tears of joy in my life.”
He said the two boys have been practicing writing their new last names, and the older one said: “That’s what’s going to make us a family.”
Category News
Tags: caylee anthony bones,caylee anthony found,caylee anthony search,leonard padilla search
Updated information from WFTV. Turns out Padilla may be a bit shady.
ORLANDO, Fla. – For a few hours Thursday afternoon, searchers thought they’d found bones that could have been part of the remains of Caylee Anthony. But detectives quickly determined the evidence found by bounty hunter Leonard Padilla’s dive team was nothing but sticks and mud.
The detectives also cast suspicion on the find by asking Padilla to take a lie detector test.
Early Thursday afternoon, the dive team confirmed to Eyewitness News it had located several children’s toys inside a plastic bag in the Little Econ River including a plastic shamrock toy. The divers also claimed to have found three or four bones.
But Orange County Sheriff’s Office investigators said, in fact, there were no bones and the bag had nothing to do with the Caylee Anthony case. Additionally, the shamrock toy turned out to be a Gumby toy.
“There is nothing … at the scene that is credible or of a significant find,” said Capt. Angelo Nieves of the Sheriff’s Office (watch full statement). “Nothing that was discovered has been retained by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.”
FBI agents and sheriff’s office detectives arrived on the scene Thursday afternoon and sifted through the remains (video).
Category News
Tags: caylee anthony dead,caylee anthony missing,caylee anthony search
ORLANDO, Fla. – Divers searching for a sign of missing toddler Caylee Anthony on Thursday found a plastic bag with toys and small bones weighted down by bricks, bounty hunter Leonard Padilla said.
Inside the bag were two toys and bones the size of fingers and toes, diver David Badalai told WESH 2 News. There also was a shamrock, which Padilla said was a favorite symbol of mother Casey Anthony.
The bag, Balalai said, was held underwater by two bricks.
While law enforcement, including the FBI and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office headed to the scene, divers continued to pull items out of the water. The Sheriff’s Office plans a media briefing later this afternoon, but told WESH 2 News reporter Bob Kealing that the bag is of no value as evidence, and its lead investigator in the case left the scene.
From the air, Chopper 2 pilot Dan McCarthy said divers could be seen going down into drains and handing bags and other items up.
Category News
Tags: zach quinto heroes,zach quinto spock,zachary quinto leonard nimoy,zachary quinto spock,zachary quinto star trek movie
I think it will be the perfect role for him! I’m not a Trekkie but I know a lot of people are excited about this movie. It opens in May 09. Here is an interview MTV did with him about his upcoming role.
SAN DIEGO — At Comic-Con there are stars, there are favorites, and then there are kings. These days, names like Bruce Campbell, William Shatner and Stan Lee are moving over to make room for a new god among geeks: 31-year-old Zachary Quinto.
We caught up with the brain-swiping “Heroes” baddie on top of the new Hard Rock Hotel, where he sat back in a brimmed hat and sunglasses, looking out at the swarms of people who had attended a panel for his hit show moments before. Thanks to the series and his role in next May’s “Star Trek” reboot, Quinto is a fast-rising genre favorite. But he was nonetheless excited when we gave him a first look at his new Spock movie poster and was eager to talk to us about pointy ears, rules for dealing with nerds and the “Trek” sequels to come.
Category News
Tags: casey anthony,casey anthony attorney,caylee anthony,caylee anthony dead,cindy anthony,dna casey anthony,george anthony,joel baez
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – New documents were released Thursday in the case against Casey Anthony that reveal what George and Cindy Anthony told investigators in the hours and days after Caylee Anthony was reported missing.
The State Attorney’s Office released 500 pages of new documents in the case Thursday and they show that George Anthony told investigators he felt something was wrong from the very beginning. The documents focus a lot on interviews George and Cindy Anthony did with sheriff’s deputies.
When sheriff’s investigators questioned Casey’s father George nine days after Caylee was reported missing, George told them he had “bad vibes” the very first day he got his car back and smelled the smell in the trunk, a smell, he said as a former law enforcement officer, he knows and would never forget.
Casey’s father George told investigators, “I don’t want to believe that I have, have raised someone and brought someone in this world that could do something to another person. I don’t want to believe that.”
George also told them, “I, I, I believe that there’s someone dead back there and I hate to say the word human. Um, I hate to say that.”
George told them, when he opened the trunk of the car, he said to himself, “Please don’t let this be my Caylee.”
Category News
Tags: michael crichton cancer,michael crichton dead,michael crichton dies,michael crichton jurassic park
Michael Crichton, the million-selling author of such historic and prehistoric science thrillers as “Jurassic Park,” “Timeline” and “The Andromeda Strain,” has died of cancer, his family said.
He died Tuesday in Los Angeles at age 66 after a long battle with the illness.
Crichton was a brand-name author, known for his stories of disaster and systematic breakdown, such as the rampant microbe of “The Andromeda Strain” or dinosaurs running amok in “Jurassic Park,” one of his many books that became major Hollywood movies.
“Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand,” his family said in a statement.