Recently, James Lawerence King, a federal judge, upheld a ban in Florida that prevented gays from adopting, accepting the state’s argument that married heterosexual couples were “more stable” for children. An interesting interpretation considering that since the passing of this ban divorce has more than quadrupled nationwide. This isn’t to say single parents don’t provide a stable environment, but considering the ruling, several question are raised.

King stated that the two men who challenged the law were unable to prove that “homosexual families are equivalently stable, are able to provide proper gender identification or are no more socially stigmatizing than married heterosexual families.”

So we are left wondering, just what is a stable family?

Is a stable family one in which there is no threat of the family breaking up? If this is to be the case then no family can be utterly assured of this.

But, even if we accept this to be a standard, is Florida saying families that go through divorce are not stable enough that the children in them will suffer? This can’t be the reason, because the ban is only on gay couples.

Perhaps then the ban was made because at the time the idea of gay couples getting married hadn’t even crossed the mind of the public at large, as only recently it is starting to. But surely being married isn’t necessary to have a stable family to raise a child, because if that was, millions of single parents should be stripped of their children as soon as possible. Florida however has made no such attempts or made plans to take these actions, so there must still be another reason.

Maybe King was focusing on the ideas that homosexual families don’t provide for “gender identification” with two members of the same sex filling all roles of the 21st century family.

This idea is sexist to assume there are specific roles within the family such as the mother staying home to cook and clean, and the father being the breadwinner.

For those readers who question the ability of a gay couple to raise children, I pose this idea to you. One of the men challenging the law is the foster parent of a 10-year-old boy whom he has raised since infancy. The other man is the guardian of a 9-year-old boy. It’s interesting how these men have been allowed to care for these children, one of them for a decade, and both legally responsible for them, yet the idea of these men adopting the boys terrifies state law makers.

So we are left with but one main point that King made, gay families are more socially stigmatized than married heterosexual families. Perhaps this was the case in 1977 when it passed, but now society has become more accepting.

However, such laws and policies such as this one, only perpetuate the stigma of gay couples. The reason for the law being passed was the stigma attached to gays and now only serves to further this idea that a gay couple can’t raise children.

The law is little more then an attempt to make it OK to discriminate against gays. The lawyer representing the state in the case even argued at one point that the law was legitimate because of the state’s disapproval of homosexuality. The judge rejected this idea, claiming he couldn’t legitimately accept the moral disapproval of homosexuals.

At the same time, King claimed state officials consider families with a mother and father to be important for a child’s well-rounded growth and development. And also that the law gives most of it’s consideration to couples who’ve been married a sufficient length of time.

So, instead of saying homosexual couples are unable to provide a proper family for children, we are told that married heterosexual couples just happen to be the best qualified. No matter how King worded his ruling, the message was clear – homosexual couples are still victims of state-sanctioned discrimination.

Hopefully, this case will now make it’s way to the Supreme Court where the law will finally be overturned and perhaps help to remove the homophobia within our nation.

Blaine Moyle is a junior in english from Des Moines.