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FLORIDAAGENDA.COM
‘Dance With Greg’ Continued from COVER the swimming pool springboard during the preliminary rounds while performing a reverse 2½ pike. He suffered a concussion but completed the preliminaries despite his injury, earning the gold medal. His comeback earned him the title of ABC's Wide World of Sports 1988 “Athlete of the Year.” Fans of the Olympian have set up a Facebook page, “We Want Greg Louganis on Dancing with the Stars,” and POZ magazine has likewise launched a campaign to encourage readers to contact the show and get Louganis to trip the light fantastic. The
gold medalist can also be followed on Twitter @greglouganis. “People can also contact the show’s official page and let the producers know they want to see me on the program,” Louganis said. “[Writer] Armistead Maupin suggested that if I’m selected for this season, I should dance with a male partner, which would be timely in light of marriage equality being so much in the national awareness this year.” Dancing With the Stars season 14 premieres on Monday, March 19 at 8 p.m. H
‘NAUGLE ENDORSEMENT’ Continued from COVER
Discrimination Proves a Good Teacher WORCESTER, MA – Gay parents “tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents,” says Abbie Goldberg, research psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts, who studies gay and lesbian parenting. According to Goldberg, gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals. “That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement,” added Goldberg.
“Modern Family’ Image Courtesy ABC.com
By BoB KecsKemety According to Live Science, research indicates that while kids of gay parents show few differences in achievement, mental health, social functioning, and other measures, these kids may have the advantage of open-mindedness, tolerance, and role models for equitable relationships. Gays and lesbians are also more likely to provide homes for difficult-to-place children in the foster system. Research suggests that gays and lesbians are more likely than heterosexuals to adopt older, specialneeds, and minority children. Preference may partly account for that, and may partly be founded upon discrimination by adoption agencies that put more difficult children with “less desirable”—in the opinion of caseworkers-parents. Furthermore, the research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples--both adopted and biological kids--fare no worse than the kids of straight couples in terms of mental health, social functioning, school performance, and a variety of other lifesuccess measures. H
PHOTO: WAYMON HUDSON
Why Gay Parents May Be the Best Parents:
In 2007, Naugle said that the city needed spite of Naugle’s fierce opposition, Fort to purchase single-occupancy public toilets Lauderdale city commissioners approved in Fort Lauderdale’s Holiday Park in order to the library’s occupation of a city-owned “reduce homosexual sex in bathrooms.” The mayor first claimed that his orders to city police to arrest gay men accused of having sex in the park’s restrooms was intended to protect the city’s children, but he later said his purpose was to reduce the risk of HIV transmission. Fort Lauderdale Police reported four incidents of male sex acts in public restrooms during the period Former City Commissioner Anthony Niedwicki and his partner between November 2005 Waymon at a “Flush Naugle” Campaign Event in 2008. and November 2007. Naugle said at the time: “We don't have men and women having sex building. That summer, the Broward together in bathrooms--at least we don't Tourism Development Council expelled have reports of that. It's men having sex Naugle because of his positions concerning with men, and I feel it's necessary for an LGBT rights. Naugle’s support for the Boy Scouts of elected official to tell it like it is. I don't America’s ban on gay troop leaders subscribe to political correctness.” In 2007, Naugle opposed the Stonewall prompted the nine members of the Broward Library & Archives, citing pornographic County Commission to unanimously sign a materials among the library’s collections. letter that called the county “safe, unbiased Stonewall Executive Director Jack Rutland and gay friendly.” After his public battles over gay rights, countered that the three titles the mayor found objectionable were contained among Naugle explained his choice of verbiage to the library's non-circulating archive of describe LGBT issues: “I use the word 7000 titles, which were maintained for homosexual. Most of them aren't gay; historical and research purposes only. In they're unhappy.” H