Most people are aware of (sick of?) Steve Zack's Claude Pepper impression.

Less known is my spot-on impression of friend and noted mensch Burton Young.

Sure it sometimes lapses into a passable George Burns, but when you think about it, so does Burt.

Anyway, Burt knows what he is talking about, and has this to say about the ban on gay adoption in Florida:

Florida’s bizarre “law” was passed more than 30 years ago during the anti-gay hysteria of Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign. The ban on gay adoption was borne out of prejudice, plain and simple. It had no scientific predicate. Its backers were nothing more than lynch-type rabble rousers.

On an unrelated note, people are still writing angry letters about George L. Metcalfe's "ad" in the Florida Bar News.

I like how Burt cites his possible contemporary Charles Dickens:

“If the law supposed that,” said Mr. Bumble, …”the law is an ass …” (Dickens, Pickwick Papers, [1836-37]).

Indeed.

I always knew Burt Young was a mensch.

But he brought a tear to even these jaded eyes with his most recent letter to the Florida Bar News (his earlier one is here), in what has become a continuing George L. Metcalfe soapbox/soap opera played out in the letters page of what used to be a normal Bar publication:

Is not it Biblically accepted that (wo)man was created in the image of G-d? If G-d created His people with different sexual orientations, then who is Mr. Metcalfe and his ilk to question G-d’s wisdom? If his answer is that the literal translation of the Bible says it’s so, then how are all of the bizarre and inhumane contradictions of the Bible explained? They cannot.

Who in their right minds would accept and be bound as part of the civil law the literal Biblical interpretations? (I do not consider members of the Taliban as being in their right minds!)

In sum and in every respect, David has made both his late mom and me very proud parents.

And, I repeat, any law that would prohibit the likes of my son from adopting a child is an “ass.”

And not just the law either.

You know, I think Burt is channeling either Shakespeare or Mel Brooks above.

Let's go with Brooks and the Nazis, they're funnier -- scroll through to about 4:55 in to see what I mean.