Supreme Court Refuses to Hear
Challenge
to Ban on Gays Adopting Children
By David Savage, LATimes from the Web, January 10, 2005
WASHINGTON — In a setback for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court refused today to hear a challenge to a unique Florida law that bars gays and lesbians from adopting children.
Lawyers said it is the only state law that flatly prohibits gays and lesbians from adopting children, although Mississippi bans adoptions by same-sex couples.
Florida's law was enacted in 1977 when singer Anita Bryant led a statewide campaign against homosexuals.
But Florida does not prohibit gays and lesbians from caring for foster children, and its ban on formal adoptions was challenged as irrational and unconstitutional by several gay men who cared for foster children.
Steven Lofton and his partner Roger Croteau took in two infants in 1988 who had tested positive for HIV, and they have raised the two, now 17 years old.
Their lawyers pointed out that the state encourages single people to adopt children.
And it permits former drug abusers, felons and child abusers to be adoptive parents, they noted.
Still, more than 3,400 children in Florida are in need of adoption, but no adoptive parents are available.
By contrast, gays and lesbians are barred from adopting, regardless of their record as parents or providers of foster care.
The Child Welfare League of America supported the challenge and argued that it was mistake to exclude a group of willing parents.
Under the state's law, "a beloved aunt who is a lesbian could be passed over in favor of complete strangers for a child whose parents have died," the group said.
Nonetheless, the justices issued a one-line order refusing to hear the Florida case, known as Lofton vs. Florida.
It was one of 426 appeals that were denied review today.
As usual, the high court gave no reason for refusing to hear the gay adoption case, and it's not clear whether its action will have an impact elsewhere.
States would be free to enact new restrictions on adoptions, but experts say most state agencies are in search of more willing and reliable people to take in abandoned children.
While state agencies seek married couples as the ideal for placing abandoned children, they are happy to turn to good caregivers regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation.
"There are astonishing numbers of gay people who are raising special needs children around the country," said Matthew Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the appeal in the Florida case.
He said he was disappointed and not sure why the high court turned away the appeal.
In a pair of recent rulings, the justices have struck down state laws that discriminated against gays and said that "moral disapproval" of homosexuality is not an all-purpose justification for state bias against gays.
Two years ago in a case called Lawrence vs. Texas, the court in a 6-3 decision struck down the state laws that made sex between gays a crime.
"If I had to guess, I would say they looked at this case and figured that Lawrence came down only 18 months ago, and they wanted to follow their usual practice of letting the issue percolate for a few years before they take it up again." Coles said.
Shortly after the high court's ruling in the Texas case, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that gays and lesbians had a right to marry there, a decision that set off a backlash in much of the country.
In November, voters in 16 states approved bans on same-sex marriages.
Florida's ban on gay adoptions was upheld by a federal judge and by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta on a 6-6 vote.
Mathew D. Staver, the president of Liberty Counsel based in Orlando, defended the Florida law and praised the court's action.
"Adoption is a privilege, not a right," he said. "Common sense and human history underscore the fact that children need a mother and a father."
The state's ban on adoptions by gays "serves the legitimate purpose of preserving the traditional model of the family," he said
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