It's Over

Down in Florida, the state's gay adoption ban is practically dead.

Florida's Department of Children and Families [DCF] decided yesterday that it will not appeal the overturning of the ban to the Supreme Court.

Now, the only way the case can be appealed  would be if Attorney General Bill McCollum separately decides to file an appeal, though he would be doing so without the support of DCF, which has begun changing its application forms so adoptive parents aren't asked if they're gay.

If McCollum doesn't appeal--and he has until October 21st to do so--it will end the thirty-year-old ban once considered the strictest in the country. Florida's 3rd District Court of Appeal upheld a 2008 ruling by a Miami-Dade judge, who found "no rational basis" for the ban when she approved the adoption of two young brothers by Martin Gill and his male partner. 

Howard Simon, executive director of Florida's ACLU: "So now this is all in Bill McCollum's lap. The big question is what is there to appeal? That opinion is not going to be disturbed."

Which is exactly how DCF feels: "We had weighed an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court to achieve an ultimate certainty and finality for all parties. But the depth, clarity and unanimity of the DCA opinion--and that of Miami-Dade Judge Cindy Lederman's original circuit court decision--has made it evident that an appeal would have a less than limited chance of a different outcome."

So, after thirty years, thousands of children who might otherwise have grown up without parents, now have a chance to become part of a family.

It's good.

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