12008FlaGayAdoption

www.ambiente.us DECEMBER | DICIEMBRE 2008

Florida gay adoption ban headed To State Supreme Court

(Miami, Florida... November 25, 2008 - A Miami judge ruled there is “no rational basis” for prohibiting gays
from adopting children. It is the second time in two months a judge has ruled against the Florida ban.

Send / ShareAdd CommentFlorida law allows gays to serve as foster parents but not adopt. The law is
considered the most repressive of its kind in the country.

Tuesday’s ruling will allow 47-year-old Martin Gill to adopt two young brothers he has cared for as foster
children since 2004.

The boys had been placed with Gill after he was approached for help by a state child abuse investigator.

The placement was supposed to be temporary, but three years later, the boys and Gill have become a family,
and now they want to ensure the children will not be removed at some point from his care.

Gill and lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union in October asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy
Lederman to overturn the ban on gay adoption and award him permanent custody.

An attorney appointed by Lederman to represent the children said in a report to the court that the children
refer Gill and his partner as “dad” and that Gill should be granted the adoption.

The Florida Department of Children & Families and the state attorney general’s office argued the ban should
be maintained. The position has the support of Gov. Charlie Crist (R) who said he has no plans to have the
law repealed.

“They’re a good family,” Lederman said in her ruling. “They’re a family in every way except in the eyes of the
law. These children have a right to permanancy.”

“The only real permanancy is adoption in the home where they are thriving,” she said. “There is no rational
basis to preclude homosexuals from adopting.”

Attorneys for the state said they would appeal Lederman’s ruling. The case is expected to wind up in the
Florida Supreme Court.

LGBT rights groups said they believe the court will uphold Lederman’s ruling if the court takes the case.

“We at the Family Equality Council fully trust that the Florida State Supreme Court, should it hear this case on
appeal, will see that the state has no compelling reason to overturn today’s ruling, which evaluated the
relationship between Frank Martin Gill and his two sons and, correctly, said, ‘Yes, this is a family,’” said
Jennifer Chrisler, the council’s executive director.

In September, another South Florida judge ruled against the law in a separate case.

That case involved a 13-year-old boy who had been fostered by a gay Key West man since 2001. Monroe
Circuit Court Judge David J. Audlin Jr. said in his ruling that the gay adoption ban violates the Constitution’s
separation of powers by preventing family court and child welfare judges from deciding case-by-case what is
best for a child.

”Contrary to every child welfare principle the gay adoption ban operates as a conclusive or irrebuttable
presumption that . . . it is never in the best interest of any adoptee to be adopted by a homosexual,” he wrote.

The Florida legislature adopted the law during Anita Bryant’s infamous anti-gay crusade in 1977. The bill’s
sponsor in the state Senate told a local newspaper at the time that the law was intended to send this
message to lesbians and gay men: “[We] are really tired of you. We wish you’d go back in the closet.”

In 2004, a federal appeals court upheld Florida’s ban on gay adoption. In a written ruling, the court rejected a
challenge by four gay men to the law.

“We exercise great caution when asked to take sides in an ongoing public policy debate, such as the current
one over the compatibility of homosexual conduct with the duties of adoptive parenthood,” wrote Judge
Stanley Birch.

“The state of Florida has made the determination that it is not in the best interests of its displaced children to
be adopted by individuals who ‘engage in current, voluntary homosexual activity’ and we have found nothing
in the Constitution that forbids this policy judgment.”

The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.

Attempts to repeal the law have failed several times in the legislature.

Jueza de Miami abre la puerta a parejas gays para la adopción

Miami, Fl - Una jueza de Miami dictaminó que una pareja de hombres tiene derecho a adoptar a dos niños
que criaron los últimos cuatro años, informó la prensa local, una decisión que desafía la estricta legislación
de Florida (sureste) en materia de uniones homosexuales.

La jueza Cindy Lederman del condado de Miami Dade consideró que "no hay fundamentos racionales que
priven a homosexuales de adoptar" y rechazó por inconstitucional una ley local de 1977 que lo prohíbe,
señala el Sun Sentinel en su edición electrónica.

Frank Martin Gill, de 47 años, y su pareja, no identificada, tienen en custodia a dos hermanos de 4 y 8 años
desde 2004, cuando el estado se los otorgó a su cuidado provisorio y ellos decidieron avanzar con su
adopción.

"Son una familia en todo sentido, excepto a los ojos de la ley. Esos niños tienen derecho a la estabilidad",
dijo la jueza citada por el periódico.

Los representantes estatales dijeron que apelarán la decisión judicial para que una Cámara de segunda
instancia o la Corte Suprema resuelva el futuro de la la controvertida legislación que, de ser declarada
inconstitucional, abriría la puerta a otras parejas homosexuales.

El matrimonio homosexual también está prohibido en Florida y un referéndum realizado este mes, el
mismo día de las elecciones presidenciales, decidió mantener esa prohibición en la constitución de este
estado.

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