There is no rational reason to prohibit all homosexuals from adopting children, a Florida appeals court said on Wednesday in a ruling that upheld a gay man's adoption of two young boys. Florida is the only remaining U.S. state to expressly ban adoption by gay men and women without exception, the ruling noted.
A lower court found in 2008 that the ban violated the state constitution's guarantee of equal treatment. It allowed the plaintiff, a gay man named Frank Martin Gill, to adopt two boys -- half-brothers he had been raising as foster children since 2004.
The Florida Department of Children and Families said the lower court erred and the adoption was illegal under the state's 33-year-old ban on adoption by gays.
But the state's Third District Court of Appeal in Miami on Wednesday upheld the lower court's finding that "there is no rational basis for the statute."
The children were removed from their home because of abuse and neglect when one was 4 years old and the other 4 months old, and their parents' rights to the boys were terminated by a court. When they were placed with Gill, the older boy did not speak, the younger one had an untreated ear infection. Both had ringworm and other medical problems, the court documents said.