The Associated Press
A gay couple's battle to legally adopt a child helped inspire O'Donnell's decision to talk about her own homosexuality and take part in an American Civil Liberties Union campaign.

Rosie rallies for gay foster parents

Olympian news services

Originally published Saturday, March 9, 2002

NEW YORK -- The legal battles of a gay foster couple in Florida have prompted celebrity adoptive mother Rosie O'Donnell to discuss her own homosexuality.

Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau are challenging a state law that bans gays from adopting children. O'Donnell, who has a home near Miami and briefly was a foster parent to a Florida toddler, is helping in their fight, People magazine reports in its March 18 issue. She's expected to take part in an American Civil Liberties Union campaign this month.

"I think that Rosie will help people understand that gay parenting is not a bad thing," Croteau told the magazine. He and Lofton are parents to five foster children they want to adopt, ages 5 to 14, for whom O'Donnell threw a pizza party at her Manhattan offices last month.

O'Donnell, 39, has three adopted children: Parker, 6; Chelsea, 4; and Blake, 2. She's raising them with her longtime girlfriend, 34-year-old Kelli Carpenter, in Nyack, N.Y.

O'Donnell is expected to discuss her homosexuality for the first time publicly in an interview with Diane Sawyer, scheduled to air on ABC's "Primetime Thursday" on March 14.

CORNING, Iowa -- Skateboarders in a small southwest Iowa town will have Johnny Carson to thank when their new park is built.

The former talk show host received a request for a small donation to help build the skate park in his hometown. He responded with a check for $75,000 -- enough to pay for nearly the whole project.

Lori Goldsmith, who is organizing efforts to raise money for the park, solicited Carson several weeks ago for a small contribution.

Goldsmith said she was shocked when she opened an express mail package from Carson and found the check. The project will cost about $90,000.

A committee was formed to raise money for the park after officials in this town of 1,783 people threatened to ban skateboarding downtown.

Carson, who was born in Corning in 1925, donated $15,000 to an elementary playground a few years ago. He hosted "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" on NBC from 1962-92.

LONDON -- Rock singer Billy Bragg hiked up his sweater to show off a T-shirt featuring the punk band the Clash as he testified in Parliament, telling legislators they were out of touch with the British people.

"I look at you here in your suits and ties and me sitting here in my Clash T-shirt, and I don't really see myself represented here," he told the House of Commons Public Administration Committee Thursday. "The majority of us don't see ourselves."

Asked to speak about how public appointments are made, Bragg blamed Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor party government for making young people cynical by failing to live up to its promises.

He rebuffed a 44-year-old Welsh legislator who pointed out that he and the 44-year-old Bragg were from the same generation and both grew up on punk rock.

"You should see my audience," the musician told lawmaker Kevin Brennan. "They are all the same age as us, and they don't look like you, mate."

He urged lawmakers to change the way members of the House of Lords are selected, saying the legislative body should include ordinary people who lack political connections.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

back to People index