The Saints:

On Sunday, Scott Fujita will reach the pinnacle of his football career, playing linebacker for the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl. Fujita describes it as “this small moment in time where you have a platform to do some good things.’’ Last fall, that included speaking out in support of gay rights, a rare step in a professional sporting culture that often turns social stances into landmines. Fujita, who is married, the father of twin daughters, and straight, pushes against the rising trend in sports to remain mum on cultural and political touchstones. His boldness, shaped by his unusual upbringing, makes him an uncommon and effective advocate for what he believes in.

...

Fujita was adopted by a third-generation Japanese-American man named Rodney and a Caucasian woman named Helen. He feels he owes his life to them. In some states, there have been laws proposed that would allow only married couples to adopt. This deeply bothered Fujita; he interpreted the proposals as an attempt to block foster children from being adopted into loving homes.

Fujita is exactly right: in many of the same states where gay marriage is illegal only legally married couples can adopt children. These policies aren't discriminatory, bigots will insist with straight faces, because unmarried straight couples aren't allowed to adopt either—but straight couples have the option of marrying and gay couples don't. Fujita, an adoptee, understands what the bigots don't: it's not gay couples who are being victimized by laws that prevent same-sex couples from adopting. A same-sex couple that wants to adopt can move to another state, or adopt in another state; a child languishing in foster care in Florida or Arkansas—states where fit, capable, loving potential parents are turned away if they're gay—can't pick up and move to another state where he or she may have an easier time being adopted into a loving home.

The choice for kids waiting to be adopted is not, as the religious right implies (with an emphasis on "lies") one between straight parents and gay parents. It's not a choice between the "mother and father" that every child "deserves" and a couple of dykes or a couple of fags. The choice is between parents and no parents, between the security of a permanent placement and a lifetime in foster care. There are more kids out there waiting to be adopted than there are people—couples, singles, gay, straight—who are willing and able to adopt them. Fujita gets it.

Go Saints!