Fla Court Rules Gays Get Equal Protection, Adoption Ban Unconstitutional

Has Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy S. Lederman been getting too much sun or is she seeing the light?

Judge Lederman ruled on a legal case challenging a Florida law that bans lesbians and gays from adopting, finding the statute unconstitutional.

The case raises the big question Republicans are pondering as they decide which way forward for their battered Party: Embracing ignorance and authoritarianism or some manner of qualified libertarianism.

[Pictured above-right is Martin Gill with the two brothers he hopes to adopt in Florida.] From the ACLU:

Judge Lederman "struck down a Florida law that bars lesbians and gay men from adopting. The court granted adoptions to a gay man, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, who has been raising two foster children since 2004," reads a ACLU press release.

"The court ruled that the ban violated the equal protection guarantees of the state constitution because it singles out for different treatment gay people and the children they raise for no rational reason. The court also found that the ban denies children the right to permanency provided by federal and state law under the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997."

In 2005, the US Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the Florida law. So, the US Supreme Court that ruled an equal protection violation in Bush v. Gore did not get to rule on a violation in this case.

The case will likely end up in the Florida Supreme Court where four of the seven members were appointed by the late Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles.

We'll get there.

Times are changing, ultimately, such discriminatory laws as Florida's adoption law and the many anti-gay marriage statutes and state constitutional amendments will go the way of laws banning inter-"racial" marriage that were struck down in Loving v. Virginia, (1967) on equal protection grounds by the the US Supreme Court.

Change is gonna come, and likely the GOP will be left behind.

See - Trial Court Decision and Order (11/25/2008) RE: [Frank Martin Gill] John Doe and James Doe for the language of the decision by Judge Lederman.

- via mal contends