High Court Lets Ban on Gay Adoptions Stand

WASHINGTON —  In a setback for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a challenge to a Florida law that bars gays and lesbians from adopting children.

Lawyers said it was the only state law that flatly prohibited gays and lesbians from adopting children, although Mississippi banned adoptions by same-sex couples.

The Florida law was enacted in 1977 when singer Anita Bryant led a statewide campaign against homosexuals.

Florida does not prohibit gays and lesbians from caring for foster children, and its ban on formal adoptions was challenged as irrational and unconstitutional by several gay men who cared for foster children.

Steven Lofton and his partner, Roger Croteau, took in two infants in 1988 who had tested positive for HIV, and they have raised the two, now 17 years old.

Their lawyers pointed out that the state encouraged people who were single to adopt children. And it permitted former drug abusers, felons and child abusers to be adoptive parents, they said. More than 3,400 children in Florida are in need of adoption.

By contrast, gays and lesbians are barred from adoption regardless of their record as parents or providers of foster care. The Child Welfare League of America supported the challenge and argued that it was a mistake to exclude a group of willing parents.

For example, under the state’s law, “a beloved aunt who is a lesbian could be passed over in favor of complete strangers for a child whose parents have died,” the group said.

Nonetheless, the justices issued a one-line order refusing to hear the Florida case, known as Lofton vs. Florida. It was one of 426 appeals that were denied review Monday.

Mathew D. Staver, the president of Liberty Counsel, a pro-family advocacy group based in Orlando, Fla., defended the law and praised the court’s action.

“Adoption is a privilege, not a right,” he said. “Common sense and human history underscore the fact that children need a mother and a father.” The state’s ban on adoptions by gays “serves the legitimate purpose of preserving the traditional model of the family,” he said.

The high court, as is usual, gave no reason for refusing to hear the case, and it was not clear whether its action would have an effect elsewhere.

States would be free to enact new restrictions on adoptions, but experts say most state agencies are in search of willing and reliable people to take in abandoned children.

While state agencies seek married couples as the ideal for placing abandoned children, they have tended to favor good caregivers regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation.

“There are an astonishing number of gay people who are raising special needs children around the country,” said Matthew Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the appeal in the Florida case.

He said he was disappointed and not sure why the high court turned away the appeal. In a pair of recent rulings, the justices have struck down state laws that discriminated against gays and lesbians and said that “moral disapproval” of homosexuality was not an all-purpose justification for state bias.

In a 2003 case called Lawrence vs. Texas, the court in a 6-3 decision struck down the state laws that made sex between gays a crime.

“If I had to guess, I would say they looked at this case and figured that Lawrence came down only 18 months ago, and they wanted to follow their usual practice of letting the issue percolate for a few years before they take it up again,” Coles said.

Shortly after the high court’s Texas ruling, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that gays and lesbians had a right to marry there, a decision that set off a backlash in much of the country. In November, voters in 11 states approved bans on same-sex marriages.

Florida’s ban on gay adoptions was upheld by a federal judge and by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta on a 6-6 vote.