A Florida judge last week ruled that a state law banning gays and lesbians from adopting children is unconstitutional. Of course, the attorney general’s office will probably appeal, but the ruling signifies a growing trend in accepting homosexuals in family matters.
In her decision, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy S. Lederman ruled that 47-year-old Frank Martin Gill, a gay man, could adopt the two foster children he has raised since 2004. “The best interests of the children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption,” she said.
The Miami-Dade attorney general’s office says it will appeal the decision. It is likely that the case will end up before the state supreme court, but it will probably not reach the US Supreme Court. In 2005, the US Supreme Court refused to hear a similar case about Florida’s ban on gay adoptions.
Florida is the only state to expressly prohibit adoptions by gays and lesbians, either as individuals or as couples. A few other states, such as Mississippi and Utah, effectively prohibit them by limiting adoptions to married couples (which must consist of a man and a woman).
Gill’s case forces the question: Is there a legitimate basis to require that children be raised in a heterosexual environment? Surely it must be better for a child to have even one loving parent than none at all, no matter what the parent’s sexual orientation is. An attorney for Gill says that the ruling will open up adoption to more than 1,000 Florida kids. Those are more than 1,000 reasons to let the ruling stand.
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