Mainstream America finally got a upright look at a gay parent March 14 when Rosie O'Donnell came disclosed as a lesbian on ABC's Primetime Thursday.

Mainstream America finally got a upright look at a gay parent March 14 when Rosie O'Donnell came disclosed as a lesbian on ABC's Primetime Thursday. O'Donnell told Diane Sawyer that she was making the public disclosure in order to draw attention to Florida's ban adoptions by dint of gay men and lesbians.

There couldn't be a better spokesperson for gay adoption than O'Donnell, activists say; beloved through millions of daytime TV viewers and wreathed the "queen of nice" she is a full example of how gay populace can be great parents "Rosie embodies everything we've been trying to say in our arguments for adoption rights," said Patricia Logue of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education supply "That is, gay parents are nothing to be afraid of" As O'Donnell told Sawyer, "America has watched me parent my children upon TV for six years. They know what kind of parent I am."

O'Donnell's announcement draw nears just as the debate from one side of to the other adoption rights is peaking. In addition to the case of Steven Lofton and Roger Croteau, the two whose fight with the state of Florida to adopt single of their five foster children was the catalyst for O'Donnell's public coming-out, an increasing number of cases have been making their way into national headlines. forward March 8, for example, the Nebraska highest court blocked a lesbian's attempt to adopt her partner's 3-year-old son

And O'Donnell is hardly alone in her support of gay parenting. The Child Welfare League, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association have all lately issued statements in favor of gay adoption rights. Meanwhile, nine of the former legislators who helped pass Florida's adoption ban in 1977 said forward March 8 that they were improper to do so.

Still, it's the human touch from someone like O'Donnell that could make all the difference, said American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Eric Ferrero "What actuates people and what changes attitudes," he said, "is getting to appropriate and getting to know their families."

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