Adoption in Florida - continued

Florida's "homosexual" adoption ban, as codified in Florida Statute section 63.042, providing "No person eligible to adopt under this statute may adopt if that person is a homosexual," is again the subject of litigation. 

This time, it's a hearing in Miami in which a gay male couple is seeking to adopt two children who have been in their custody since 2004.  The law guardian supports the adoption.  Despite the constitutional challenge to the statute, however, it seems the hearing is closed to the press and public since it involves adoption. 

The Miami Herald story is here.   (A big thanks to Ricardo Pla for this lead).

Previous history of the Florida adoption ban includes a Key West judge holding the ban unconstitutional, discussed on Family Law Blog on September 12, 2008.  And it is the same statutory provision that was upheld against constitutional challenge by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Lofton v. Secretary of Dept. of Children and Family Services, 358 F.3d 804 (11th Cir. 2004), with the en banc Eleventh Circuit declining to reconsider the opinion, with concurring and dissenting opinions  in Lofton v. Secretary of Dept. of Children and Family Services, 377 F.3d 1275 (11th Cir. 2004).

RR (October 2, 2008).