Supreme Court Lets Stand Floridas Gay Adoption Ban

Adoption News - 8 - Supreme Court Lets Stand Florida's Gay Adoption Ban

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Supreme Court Lets Stand Florida's Gay Adoption Ban
By James Vicini
January 10, 2005

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) refused on Monday to hear a constitutional challenge to a 1977 Florida law that bans gays and lesbians from adopting children, the only such state law in the nation.

Without comment, the high court declined to consider whether the law, which was adopted at the height of entertainer Anita Bryant's anti-homosexual campaign, unfairly singled out gays and lesbians in violation of their constitutional rights.

The law states, "No person eligible to adopt under this statute may adopt if that person is a homosexual." No other state categorically excludes gays or lesbians from adopting.

The law's sponsor, Florida Sen. Curtis Peterson, said at the time the purpose of the legislation was to send a message to gays and lesbians that "we're really tired of you. We wish you'd go back into the closet."

The Supreme Court issued its last gay rights ruling in 2003, when it struck down a Texas sodomy law and declared that constitutional due process and privacy rights applied to gays in that case.

The Florida law was challenged in 1999 by four gay men, Steven Lofton, Douglas Houghton, Wayne LaRue Smith and Daniel Skahen, who have been raising foster children, but cannot adopt them because of the law.

The lawsuit claimed the law violated the right to equal protection of lesbians and gays who seek to adopt and of the children raised by gays and lesbians who cannot be adopted by those caring for them.

A federal judge in Miami and a U.S. appeals court upheld the law. The Atlanta-based appeals court said the issue of gay adoptions should be decided by the Florida legislature, not by the courts.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) appealed to the Supreme Court. They said whether a state can categorically exclude gays from consideration as adoptive parents represented an important question of federal law.

They said the appeals court disregarded Supreme Court rulings in 2003 and in 1996 that held that disapproval of gay people is not a constitutionally acceptable basis for government action.

They also said the law denied many Florida children permanent families. "This law sacrifices the interests of children," they said. "It is no exaggeration to say that lives may be at stake here; childhoods certainly are."

Attorneys for the Florida Department of Children and Families said the appeal should be denied and that Supreme Court review would be "inappropriate."

They described the law as related to rational state goals. "Florida's interest in placing children with married mothers and fathers has been recognized as legitimate by Florida state courts."

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