Flordia Anti-Gay Adoption Group Accused of 'Scare Tactics' Photo

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Flordia Anti-Gay Adoption Group Accused of 'Scare Tactics' Photo

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Conservative Orlando Family Policy Council accused of using false photo as anti-gay "scare tactic"  

 A Florida group that opposes adoption by gay couples is being accused of using scare tactics and stereotypical photo profiling,  according to a blogger writing for  Sociological Images.

 According to the report,  the  Florida Family Policy Council used a photo of an “androgynous-looking, angry, mannish lesbian couple” to inform its members that a couple had been allowed to adopt a relative’s child. 

The actual lesbian couple looked feminine, happy,  "non-menacing",  and were attractive by "heterosexual norms of femininity"  said the report.  Thus, to make its point sufficiently frightening,  the couple's picture was replaced by an angry and "butch"  looking couple,  who looked lower class and threatening.  

The Orlando Sentinel  newspaper called the Family council ,  who apologized for the "mix up",  the report stated.  

A Judge's Ruling called "arrogant"  

In the case of the actual couple,  who were foster parents to a one year old boy,  a judge's ruling had stated that they should be allowed legally to adopt the boy as their own son.  This caused an outcry among religious conservative groups in the state.  

The Orlando Florida Family Policy Council charged the court with "arrogant judicial activism" which proponents of gay adoption believe is only code for not wanting gays to have equal rights with heterosexuals.  

Thus, the "scare tactic"  of the photo of the bizarre looking couple was a last resort of the right, they charged.  

The two-woman couple awarded custody of the 1-year-old  were South Florida trade-show executive Vanessa Alenier and her partner, Melanie Leon and " look more like J.Crew models: all-American with catalogue clothes and smiles"  said journalist Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel.