ACLU Cites Lawrence in Florida Case
Datalounge,
July 23, 2003
http://www.datalounge.com/datalounge/news/record.html?record=20876
ATLANTA—Citing the recent U.S. Supreme Court
decision in Lawrence v. Texas
that overturned state sodomy laws, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a
supplemental brief with a Florida appeals court, urging it to declare the
state’s gay adoption ban discriminatory and unconstitutional. Matt Coles of
the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project said the language used by the high
court majority only strengthens his organization’s contention that the
Florida law would not withstand judicial review. “The Supreme Court has now
made it crystal clear that laws that discriminate against gay people will no
longer fly,” he said.
“By placing foster children with gay parents, the state already
acknowledges that gay people make good parents,” Coles continued. “The
anti-gay adoption law is discrimination pure and simple. The state has no
legitimate basis for excluding such a large number of potential parents from
adopting and has lost its only remaining argument for doing so.”
In Lawrence, the Supreme Court explicitly overturned its 1986
decision in Bowers v. Hardwick,
which Florida relied on to justify the ban on gay adoptions. In reaching its
decision, the Court said that states cannot have laws that “demean” the
lives of gay people and recognized that the gay and lesbian struggle for
equality under law is but the latest chapter in the nation’s long civil
rights struggle. “The Supreme Court’s decision to end prejudice against
gay people may very well have the unexpected benefit of helping the 3,400
children in Florida foster care who are in need of permanent homes,” said
Coles.
The law that excludes gay people from adopting was passed by the state
legislature in 1977, in the midst of Anita Bryant’s anti-gay crusade. The
bill’s sponsor in the state senate told a local newspaper at the time that
the law was intended to send this message to lesbians and gay men: “[w]e are
really tired of you. We wish you’d go back in the closet.”
Though gay couples are barred from becoming adoptive parents, the state
relies on gay people to be foster parents to children in need of stable homes.
The ACLU points to this contradiction as a betrayal of the law’s basic
premise: that gay people are not fit parents.
The ACLU, in conjunction with the ACLU of Florida, initially filed the
lawsuit in 1998 seeking to end the adoption ban. A decision in the Florida
case, which was argued before the Federal Court of Appeals for the 11th
Circuit in March 2003, is expected over the next few months.
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