MORE ON FLA. GAY ADOPTION CASE: Tony Mauro at Legal Times

...The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals narrowly applied Lawrence and an earlier ruling -- Romer v. Evans -- on Jan. 28, 2004, when it upheld Florida's 1977 law excluding gay people from eligibility as adoptive parents.

The circuit panel's decision "reflects an almost complete failure to absorb this Court's rulings in Lawrence and Romer that disapproval of gay people is not a constitutionally acceptable basis for government action," writes American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Matthew Coles in his petition to the Supreme Court. "It threatens to strip this Court's holdings of any principled meaning and deprive them of the significance that they rightfully deserve." ...

In its reply to the ACLU brief, the Florida family agency says Florida's law is rationally related to valid state goals and that the 11th Circuit ruling is consistent with Lawrence because adoption, unlike a sexual relationship, is a public act and a privilege, not a right. And while not specifically barred by law, "people whose drug or child abuse threaten children are in practice never permitted to adopt in Florida," the state asserts in a brief written by Casey Walker of the Vero Beach, Fla., firm Murphy & Walker.

The appeals panel ruled that the Florida law was constitutional and did not violate equal protection or due process principles.

While acknowledging that the decision in Lawrence established "a greater respect than previously existed in the law for the right of consenting adults to engage in private sexual conduct," the panel said that right was not fundamental.

In a passage unusually critical of a high court decision, 11th Circuit Judge Stanley Birch Jr. added, "We are particularly hesitant to infer a new fundamental liberty interest from an opinion whose language and reasoning are inconsistent with standard fundamental-rights analysis." ...

Birch said the state's preference for homes with married mothers and fathers is based on "unprovable assumptions," but those assumptions are a sufficient basis for legislation. "Any argument that the Florida legislature was misguided in its decision is one of legislative policy, not constitutional law."

more
posted by Eve at 5:01 PM VOTE

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home