A Florida Circuit Court judge has ruled Florida’s gay adoption ban unconstitutional. The ban has been in place for 31 years:
“At the heart of the Monroe case is a 13-year-old boy with learning disabilities and special needs who has lived in his Key West foster father’s two-story home since the Department of Children & Families placed him there in 2001. The boy is identified as John Doe. The father, 52, is not identified. Audlin appointed the foster father as guardian for the boy in 2006. At a recent hearing, the boy testified he wanted the man to be his ‘forever father’ — like all the other kids had — ‘because I love him,’ the order says. A home study by a social worker ‘highly’ recommended the guardian and his partner be allowed to adopt the boy, saying the two men provided a ‘loving and nurturing home,’ provided ‘fair and consistent’ discipline and are financially secure, the order says. Miami attorney Alan Mishael, who represents John Doe’s guardian, declined to discuss the ruling, since Audlin has not yet published it formally. He said the ruling is less about public policy than the welfare of a former foster child who wants a father of his own.”
According to the Miami Herald, Judge David J. Audlin Jr. wrote: “Contrary to every child welfare principle, 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.”
