FL Gay Adoption Ban Found Unconstitutional

This just in from The Advocate:

A Florida judge has found the state's 31-year ban on gay adoptions to be unconstitutional, reports the Miami Herald. The ruling from Judge David Audlin Jr. will allow an openly gay Key West resident to adopt the teenage boy that he has raised as a foster parent since 2001.

Judge Audlin said that the adoption was in the child's "best interest" and asserted that barring gays from adopting conflicted with the state Constitution since it targets a specific group for punishment. Audlin had appointed the foster father to be the boy's legal guardian in 2006. At a hearing earlier this year, the order says the boy testified that he wanted to the man to be his "forever father... because I love him," the Herald reports.

''Contrary to every child welfare principle,'' Audlin wrote in his opinion, ''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 and Mississippi are the only two state that currently forbid gays and lesbians from adopting children.

— The Advocate Report