Jessica Cohn- Kleinberg is a senior in the Drama Magnet Program at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in Miami. She has spent the past three years working with student panels for Safe Schools South Florida and other groups, speaking to counselors, teachers and students about life with gay parents in order to reduce and eliminate discrimination. She loves to write and hopes to make a career out of it one day. But most of all she wants to be an instrument of change in our society.
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By JESSICA Cohn-kleinberg
Thursday, January 17, 2008
There comes a time when we are asked to raise our voices in order to stop the injustices of the world. Some stay silent, and some rise to the occasion. On Monday, Dec. 3, 2007, Miami’s sounds of protest rose to a deafening roar. The only question is did anyone hear?
The Senate Committee on Children, Families and Elder Affairs held a public hearing in Miami to discuss foster care and adoption issues. The one issue on everyone’s mind was Florida’s ban on gay adoption — a law that hurts many and helps none.
The hearing itself was somewhat of a disappointment to me personally. I had arrived over an hour early to sign up to speak and never got a chance to share my story. Right from the start, I was aware that some people were missing. The fact is that only three committee members showed up. I guess the welfare of our children isn’t as important as we thought. The evening did have some very touching stories, but many voices never had a chance to be heard because the evening was set up in a way that prevented many families and coalition members from speaking.
Sen. Ronda Storms created a system that lined up adoptive parents, foster parents and agencies to speak first, which seemed logical until one realized that this system left out most of our supporters: the gay parents who want to adopt as well as agencies such as SAVE Dade, Safe Schools South Florida and others.
I had my story all ready, annotated and everything. But I never got a chance to tell it. I never got a chance to tell those people with the stoic faces, just how amazing my gay moms are; that I am a good person — not despite the fact that my parents are gay but because my parents are gay. Growing up in a family that is a little different from normal has allowed me to be so much more tolerant and open minded. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. I just wish that I could have related that to the state Senate members. But I wasn’t able to speak along with about 20 other people.
And that wasn’t my only problem; the whole affair seemed rather stilted and pretentious. I even started wondering if any good could possibly come of this. But then I took a look at the 300 people sitting in that small stuffy room. I witnessed former Rep. Elaine Bloom, along with her son, his partner and two children beg for change. I heard a gay man who worked in the foster care system say how ridiculous it was that he could decide the fate of children in the system but couldn’t adopt a child himself. I saw a young woman talk about how her gay foster moms saved her life.
I watched my two moms, on the cusp of tears, hold hands. I saw all this, and had hope. I had hope that change was near because I saw it in the eyes of many faces that day. I knew change was coming because I understood, there in that room, that there are too many voices screaming for justice now. And these voices are gaining volume by the minute, so before long they won’t be able to be ignored.
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