A Monroe county circuit-court judge has widened a loophole in Florida’s 31-year-old homosexual adoption ban by sanctioning the permanent adoption of a 13-year-old boy with special needs to a 52-year-old homosexual man, with whom he has resided since 2001.The boy’s guardian and his partner were encouraged and supported by state social workers, who “highly recommended” the arrangement as it was in the boy’s “best interest.”
Although court officials claim that the ruling does not mark an attempt at paving the way for unrestricted access to adoption, this is the third case since 1991 in which the restrictions on same-sex adoption have been challenged by circuit court judges who have called them “unconstitutional.” Another similar case is scheduled for a Miami court next month.
In the yet-to-be formally published ruling from the court proceedings, Judge David J. Audlin Jr., writes that the law serves to punish an isolated group of people: in this case, those homosexual people who wish to adopt children.
“Contrary to every child welfare principle,” Audlin wrote, “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.”
Florida is one of the two States to have such a ban in place; the other State is Mississippi.
Related LifeSite coverage:
At Least 16 U.S. States Working to Ban Gay and Lesbian Adoptions
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06022303.html
