Herewith I republish a quote from the Associated Press, as reported in a Saturday, February 5, post here, "Life in the Great Red Paradise: An Intermittent Series on Assorted & Sordid Irregularities & Oddities":

A Florida couple accused of torturing and starving five of their seven children were taken into custody Friday night in Utah after detectives were able to track their cell phone signals, authorities said.

Capt. Jim Cernich of the Sheriff's Office in Citrus County, Florida, said deputies in San Juan County, Utah, apprehended Linda Dollar, 51, and John Dollar, 58, on a road after recognizing their gold 2000 Lexus sport utility vehicle.

The Dollars face charges in Citrus County, where they lived in Beverly Hills [Ed.: I'm guessing it's not what we think.], on one count of aggravated child abuse/torture for all five children.

The accusations include pulling out the children's toenails with pliers and keeping them so malnourished they "looked like pictures from Auschwitz," authorities said. [...]

The Dollars were not the biological parents of the seven children. Gail Tierney from the Citrus County Sheriff's Office said they were their legal guardians, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, commenting on the case Friday, said the Dollars had adopted the children.

And to that I responded: "Yes, that's the same Florida, led by the same Gov. Bush, where gay men and lesbian women, by state law, cannot adopt children. Because, you know, the current scheme is working really, really well for everyone involved."

I couldn't stop at that. I added:

Yes, that's the same Florida, led by the same Gov. Bush, where gay men and lesbian women, by state law, cannot adopt children. Because, you know, the current scheme is working really, really well for everyone involved.

Sure, you might not care one whit about the Dollar family's tragedy, and I, as a gay man self-declared as being completely unlikely -- but not incompetent -- to raise children, therefore and possibly thereby proving the alleged negative about gays and lesbians and children, so many of whom I know are doing so outstanding a job thereat (Is that a word?), but I care a great deal.

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