Martin Gill, with the two brothers he has raised for years and hopes to adopt. (Image from the ACLU Web site.)
Oral arguments were held on Wednesday in the ACLU’s state-court challenge to Forida’s adoption ban, In re: Gill, on which I reported earlier this summer. The folks over at law.com, care of the Daily Business Review, have a great report on the case. Jordana Mishory reports:
The state defended the gay adoption ban in general terms without attacking the suitability of Gill’s parenting in arguments before a three-judge panel and a standing-room-only crowd of more than 150 people.
. . . .
[The lawyer for the children] recited the list of state stipulations in the case: [The Department of Children and Families] agrees Gill would be a good parent. DCF agrees adoption by Gill would be in the best interest of the children. DCF allows gay parents to be legal guardians and foster parents.
“The father is a gay man. But that didn’t concern the state when they placed [the children] in his care,” he said.
Judge Gerald Cope Jr. said: “This is as far as I can tell the only absolute disqualification under the statute. How is that fair?”
As I noted in my earlier report:
The trial court opinion (pdf) contained a more-than-30-page evaluation of the factual record and expert witness evidence. It then presented 56 stipulated, or agreed upon, facts — including that “[b]ut for Section 64.042(3), Fla. Stats. [sic], DCF [Department of Children and Families] would have approved Petitioner’s application to adopt John and James.” In re the Adoption of John and James Doe, Final Judgment of Adoption, at 35.
The court, only after presenting all that information, made findings of fact and conclusions of law, in which it found a violation of the Florida Constitution’s Equal Protection rights of both the prospective parent and the children who would be disadvantaged by Florida’s ban on adoption by gay parents, as well as a statutory violation of the children’s rights.
The result of the appellate court’s decision whether to uphold Judge Cindy S. Lederman ruling that the ban is unconstitutional under Florida law is unlikely to be the last word, as the Florida ACLU’s lawyer acknowledged to me earlier:
If the appellate court upholds the trial court’s decision finding the ban to be unconstitutional, then Rosenwald said there will be an automatic appeal to the Supreme Court of Florida. Even should the appellate court uphold the ban, which would make an appeal to the Supreme Court discretionary, [the director of the Florida ACLU’s LGBT Advocacy Project, Robert] Rosenwald[,] believes the court will take the case because “this case has the evidence that they had wanted in” the earlier adoption case it heard.
I’ll have more to report when there’s more to report.
[Thanks to @stevebeste for pointing me to Mishory's article.]
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Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political editor at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, The American Prospect, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. In 2011, he received the Excellence in News Writing Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his coverage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found