By BOB KECSKEMETY

In a 3-0 ruling, the Third District Court in Miami ruled that Florida’s ban preventing gays and lesbians from adopting children is unconstitutional. The case was on behalf of a North Miami gay couple wishing to adopt their two foster children.

The court decision strikes down a 33- year old Florida law and will most likely be appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.

The final opinion stated that “Given a total ban on adoption by homosexual persons, one might expect that this reflected a legislative judgment that homosexual persons are, as a group, unfit to be parents. No one in this case has made, or even hinted at, any such arguments. To the contrary, the parties agree ‘that gay people and heterosexuals make equally good parents’.”

The law prohibiting gays and lesbians adopting children goes back to the mid- 1970s.

In 1977, the Dade County Commission passed a law prohibiting discrimination against the gay and lesbian community in matters of housing and employment. At that time, entertainer and Dade County resident Anita Bryant formed the “Save Our Children” campaign based on her Christian beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and the perceieved threat of homosexual  recruitment of children and child molestation. As a result of her efforts, the Dade ordinance was repealed and the Florida Legislature passed a law prohibiting homosexuals from adopting children in the state. The law, however, did not prevent homosexuals from becoming foster parents.

ACLU attorney, Rob Rosenwalk, Jr. represented Martin Gill and his partner in their attempt to adopt two sons they fostered since the the children were 4-years and 4- months old. The actual names of the children were never identified.

Gill’s attorney attempted to have the question taken directly to the state Supreme Court but Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum insisted that it first be heard by the Miami appeals court. However, legal scholars assumed the case would eventually go to the state’s highest court all along.

Florida’s Solicitor General, Scott Makar and Deputy Solicitor Timothy Osterhaus represented the state and claimed that it was not in the best interests of the children to be raised by homosexuals.