Gay Thursday II: Something More to be Thankful For

Date: 26-Nov-2008 [culled from DNA, an Australian magazine, no less] A judge in Florida has overturned a three decade old law that prevented gay people from adopting children, allowing a Miami man to adopt two half-brothers he had been raising with his partner for four years.

Martin Gill and his partner had been fostering the two half-brothers, but had wanted to make the arrangement permanent.

"There is no question, the blanket exclusion of gay applicants defeats Florida's goal of providing dependent children a permanent family through adoption," Judge Cindy Lederman wrote in her ruling.

"The best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption."

After the decision, the state attorney general's office announced it would appeal the decision.

The judge said there is no moral or scientific reason for banning gay people from adopting, despite the state's arguments otherwise.

The state had argued that gays and lesbians have higher odds of suffering from depression, affective and anxiety disorders and substance abuse, and that their households are more unstable.

Lederman said the ban violated children's right to permanency provided under the Florida statute and under the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. Whether the ban violated the state's equal protection clause by singling out gays and lesbians should be considered, she said.

The ruling now allows Gill to legally adopt the two half-brothers, ages 4 and 8, who have been in his care since December 2004.

The two boys, who are referred to as John and James Doe in court documents, were removed from their homes on allegations of abandonment and neglect.

"On that December evening, John and James left a world of chronic neglect, emotional impoverishment and deprivation to enter a new world, foreign to them, that was nurturing, safe, structured and stimulating," Lederma