After delivering a heart-wrenching speech on the House floor, Republican Dennis Baxley quietly changed his vote for a gay adoption bill. The staunch conservative from Ocala says prayer led him to a change of heart.
A former director of the Christian Coalition, Baxley was one of several conservatives who voted for a mostly symbolic measure to lift Florida’s 1977 gay adoption ban. The controversial provision was added to a bill that awards state workers cash for adopting a child.
“Friday morning I woke up with moral clarity that, you know, what is a wonderful bill has pushed me into a positon of affirming homosexuality with this amendment and I just can’t stay there.”
The gay adoption ban was overturned by the Third District Court of Appeal in 2010. Baxley is running for a state Senate seat, but he denied that his vote change was quote “damage control.”
