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CASE BRIEF: Homosexuals and Adoption–equal protection
Lofton v. Secretary of the Dept. of Children & Family Services No. 01-16723 (11th Cir. 01/28/2004) (Casemaker cite–federal library)
FACTS:
Florida law prohibited adoption by any “homosexual” person. 1977 Fla. Laws, ch. 77-140, § 1, Fla. Stat. § 63.042(3) (2002). “Homosexual” meant applicants “known to engage in current, voluntary homosexual activity.” Florida law let unmarried people adopt, many of whom had adopted out of foster care.
Homosexual foster parents challenged the statute on equal protection grounds, arguing that homosexuals were similarly situated to unmarried persons regarding Florida’s interest in promoting married-couple adoption. [FN1] Neither party disputed that any fundamental right to adopt existed or that Florida’s preference for marital adoptive families was a legitimate state interest. No court has found homosexuals to be a suspect class. Thus the rational-basis test applied.
LAW:
Unless the challenged classification burdens a fundamental right or targets a suspect class, the Equal Protection Clause requires only that the classification be rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Citing Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 631 (1996).
ISSUE:
“Could the Florida legislature have reasonably believed that prohibiting adoption into homosexual environments would further its interest in placing adoptive children in homes that will provide them with optimal developmental conditions.”
HOLDING/REASONING: Yes
(1) Florida need not show that homosexuals pose a greater threat than other unmarried adults who are allowed to adopt. Rather, the question was one of rationality.
(2) “It is not irrational to think that heterosexual singles have a markedly greater probability of eventually establishing a married household and, thus, providing their adopted children with a stable, dual-gender parenting environment.”
(3) It was rational to believe that heterosexual singles are better positioned than homosexual individuals to educate and guide their adopted children regarding their sexual development. Because most adopted children will develop heterosexual preferences, those children will need education and guidance after puberty about relating to the opposite sex. It therefore serves the child’s best interests to have parents who can personally relate to the child’s problems and assist the child in transitioning to heterosexual adulthood. [FN 2]
(4) Because adopted children often have developmental problems arising from adoption, having a stable heterosexual household during and after puberty might be more important for adopted children than for other children.
(5) Whether the Florida legislature was misguided was a question of legislative policy, not constitutional law. “The legislature is the proper forum for this debate.”
—————–
FN 1: This brief omitted Loften’s due process challenge, which failed mainly because Loften could not establish threats to already existing “family integrity” or “private sexual intimacy.”
FN 2: Petition for Rehearing En Banc was denied in July 2004. Petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied in January 2005.
AUTHOR’S COMMENT:
The Florida statute violates equal protection. The court reasoned:
“It is not irrational to think that heterosexual singles have a markedly greater probability of eventually establishing a married household and, thus, providing their adopted children with a stable, dual-gender parenting environment.”
But single persons are either fit to adopt when they adopt, or they are not. The state cannot let single parents adopt without assuming they will stay fit if they stay single. Under that assumption, single parents do not further the state’s goal of providing a “stable, dual-gender parenting environment.”
The court next reasoned that it was rational to believe that heterosexual singles were better positioned than homosexual individuals to educate and guide their adopted children regarding their sexual development. Because most adopted children will develop heterosexual preferences, those children will need education and guidance about relating to the opposite sex. It therefore serves the child’s best interests to have parents who can personally relate to the child’s problems and assist the child in transitioning to heterosexual adulthood.
But that assumes that homosexual and heterosexual relationships differ fundamentally. The difference cannot be gender-based because the legislature assumes a heterosexual parent can counsel either a son or a daughter about heterosexual relationships. In turn, the legislature assumes that homosexuals cannot relate to heterosexual children regardless their sex. Thus, the legislature assumes some difference in the psychological make-up of homosexual relationships beyond mere sexual “orientation.”
But there is no evidence of it. The belief that a difference exists is therefore not rational, but prejudicial. The state must show some evidence of a fundamental difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals in their psychology–beyond the existence of the relationship itself–before it can assume that single homosexuals are less stable than single heterosexuals, or even that there is such a thing as a “homosexual environment.”
For those reasons, I believe the Florida statute violates equal protection.
Erik L. Smith
Columbus, OH
okay, here’s the deal. it’s tramatic enough for children to hear their father and mother engaged in sexual intercourse – the sounds, thuds, grunts, squeals and the smells of semen and pussy juice on wash cloths. but, it’s natural, as it is the basis for procreation and prepares children for what to expect as adults.
now, say, when two homosexuals have a child around (through adoption). the child hears howls, yelps, man-grunts, crying(the sigmoid area can be hurt during sodomy by the hard, wildly penetrating penis). also the child smells the semen on the wash cloths and elsewhere residue that has been swallowed, gargled and spat upon. add to it fecal matter and often diarrhea which results from the ejaculate causing peristalis which produces loose stools, often bloody as well(the aids monkey virus can then infect, a sad legacy of male africans penetrating female monkeys and other simians, then receiving the aids virus into their system through the vagina-simian juices and the simian blood, also the horrifc rumors of human- monkey hybrids, humanzee hybrids, human-gorilla hybrids said to exist in some parts of africa).
and, say, when two lesbians have a child around (through adoption). the child hears the sounds of screams, howlings, yelps, hoots and vibrators, whips, strap ons–the child will discover these acoutrements in the lesbian couple’s sex lair as well. the child could hang her/himself on strap on, not knowing what to do with it. the child also will smell pussy juice and will be kissed in the morning by two mothers who have eachother’s pussy juice on their hormonally wacked moustaches, their eyebrows, their faces and their hair.
Erik is having problems posting his reply here, so I’m doing it for him.
…Bastardette
I do not favor homosexuals adopting. The issue, however, is the integrity of the rationale basis standard. If a legislature needs to show only that one group will “more likely become” what the state wants “sometime” in the future–and then so what if they don’t–then virtually all laws are immune to equal protection challenges. And if the real “deal” is the effect of sexual behavior collaterally on the children, then the court should have dealt explicitly with that instead of focusing on relationship counseling. More rational would be to disallow both homosexuals and single people to adopt. It makes little sense to ram “two-parent home” down birthparents’ throats, then let their children be adopted by single people. Similarly, it makes little sense to say that married homosexuals cannot adopt, but single persons can. If the state has no interest in preventing homosexuals from marrying and having their own biological children, then it seems a stretch to say that those same people should be prevented from adopting, while single people and homosexuals can be foster parents. Your comment focuses solely on the harm of homosexuals adopting, not on how homosexuals and heterosexual single persons are dissimilarly situated relevant to the equal protection clause.