FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 5, 2008
CONTACT:
Brandon Hensler, Director of Communications, (786) 363-2737 or media@aclufl.org
Paul Cates, Director of Public Education, ACLU LGBT Project, (212) 549-2568 or pcates@aclu.org
MIAMI – The American Civil Liberties Union and lawyers for Martin Gill’s adopted children today filed a request in Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals seeking to bypass the intermediate appellate court and move the state’s appeal of last week’s adoption ruling directly to the Florida Supreme Court.
“Everyone in this case agrees that prolonging a child’s stay in foster care is not in his best interest. The trial court found that these children are thriving in this home, and that there is no reason – scientific or other – that they should be denied the permanency and protections of adoption,” said Rob Rosenwald, Director, ACLU of Florida LGBT Advocacy Project. “Today we ask the court to take the best interest of these kids into consideration and not make them wait the extra years it would take for the case to make its way through the traditional appellate process.”
On November 25, 2008, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy Lederman granted adoption of two brothers, ages 4 and 8, to Martin Gill of North Miami, after a four-day trial that highlighted scientific evidence that proved gay and straight people make equally good parents. The decision overturned a 31-year-old discriminatory law banning gays and lesbians from adopting – the only such law in the U.S. – that was put on the books after the anti-gay campaign led by Anita Bryant in the 1970’s.
Lederman noted in her decision that the fact that parental sexual orientation has no impact on children’s well-being has “been accepted, adopted and ratified by” the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League of America and the National Association of Social Workers, and that it is “beyond dispute” that the exclusion of gay people from adopting does not protect the interests of children.
The Suggestion For Certification to Florida Supreme Court filed today is not included with this release because the document is part of a juvenile court record, which is confidential pursuant to court rule.
In addition to Rosenwald, Gill is represented by Leslie Cooper, a senior staff attorney, and James Esseks, Litigation Director, of the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project and Shelbi Day, a Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Florida. The children are represented by Hilarie Bass and Ricardo Gonzalez of Greenberg Traurig, and Charles Auslander, an attorney and former District Administrator for Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF).
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