by ACLU
By Leslie Cooper, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU LGBT & AIDS Project
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/22/912738/-Floridas-Gay-Adoption-Ban-is-Deadhttp://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/floridas-gay-adoption-ban-deadOur latest challenge to the law ended in victory this afternoon when Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that he would not appeal the decision of the 3rd District Court of Appeal striking down the statute. After the court’s powerful decision on September 22, the Florida Department of Children and Families announced that it wouldn’t appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, and Gov. Charlie Crist supported the decision, hailing the court’s ruling as a victory for children. But the attorney general had the option to independently appeal and had indicated that he was exploring that option. With his announcement today, the law is officially dead.
Because it was not appealed, the District Court of Appeal’s decision striking down the law has statewide effect. Gay people across the state are now free to apply to adopt and will be considered based on the same criteria applied to everyone else— their ability to provide a loving, safe home for a child.
On my first day as a staff attorney at the ACLU 12 years ago, my first assignment was the Lofton case, a federal court challenge to the Florida law, and the fourth of the ACLU’s five legal challenges. After five years of litigation, that case ended in heartbreak with a devastating loss at the federal circuit court. That court held that the statute was constitutional based on the “unprovable assumption” that children are best off being raised by a heterosexual couple. We began working on the latest case, a state constitutional challenge brought on behalf of Martin Gill, shortly thereafter and it took several years to get through the trial and appellate courts.
Having spent the better part of my legal career fighting this hateful law, this day means so much to me personally. First, it’s a tremendous vindication to have the court recognize what we’ve been trying to show all these years — that gay people and heterosexuals make equally good parents and that there is no basis for Florida to brand our entire community with the degrading label of “unfit parent.” We finally had the chance to put on trial the negative stereotypes about gay people that were offered in defense of the law and the court found them to be baseless. It also found that the expert witnesses the state put up to spout this shameful testimony were biased or otherwise not credible. In the absence of a single study finding any harm associated with being raised by gay parents, it is not surprising that the State couldn’t find anyone better to support the law. That’s because the law is unsupportable. And the appellate court’s decision has declared that to be so.
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