Mitch Perry
The Marion County Republican Executive Committee on Monday night approved a resolution criticizing House Republicans Dennis Baxley, Charlie Stone, and Marlene O’Toole for their votes last week in support of an amendment that would repeal the 38-year ban on same-sex couple adoption in Florida.
Committee members said the three representatives’ support of the measure was a direct rebuke to the Republican Party of Florida platform, and they’re calling on the lawmakers to not only rescind their votes immediately, but to work to make sure that it’s not approved in the Senate and becomes enshrined in state law.
The resolution says that with their support for the gay adoption bill, the three lawmakers who represent a portion of Marion County have violated their oaths stated in the GOP platform that protects children in the Florida foster care system. “There is no reason to introduce homosexual adoption, the least desirable environment in which to raise children,” the resolution reads. It says that their votes “are an affront to, and a violation of our GOP Platform and general values.”
As Florida Politics reported Sunday, Representative Baxley said that he began having second thoughts about his affirmative vote this past Thursday, the day after the measure passed in the Florida House 68-50. He then changed his vote quietly Friday evening.
Randy Osborne, chairman of the Marion County Republican Party, said what made Baxley’s vote even more infuriating is that it was preceded by a speech that persuaded other Republicans to side with him.
“The damage is done,” Osborne said, not impressed that Baxley reversed the vote two days later. “I know several representatives who support the bill because of his speech on the floor, and that’s what so damaging to this. It doesn’t change the board. Once it’s locked, it’s done. You cannot take that back.”
In fact, though, the Marion County Republicans demand that Stone and O’Toole follow Baxley’s reversal and rescind their votes as well.
Another Marion County Republican who spoke only on the condition of anonymity said that while a few people were aware of the vote, the majority of those in attendance were not and “were incredulous.”
The amendment to repeal the ban is in many ways, purely symbolic. The state’s ban on gay adoption was overturned by a court in 2010. Since then, state officials have declined to enforce the ban, but it has remained in Florida Statutes.
Osborne said that once the law goes into the books, it will deleteriously affect many faith-based organizations across the state that, he said, would have to shut down because their religious beliefs would no longer allow them to operate.
None of the three representatives singled out were in attendance, but Inverness Rep. Jimmie T. Smith. Smith is running for the state Senate District 5 seat next year. That’s the same seat Baxter also has said he intends to seek.
