A challenge to Florida's ban on adoption by gay parents.
Martin Gill and his partner of more than eight years have
been raising two foster children of the state since 2004. When they arrived, the infant and his
four-year-old brother had clearly suffered from neglect. In 2006, a judge terminated the parental
rights of the biological parents.
Meanwhile, the children have thrived in their new home and are closely
bonded to their foster parents and their other brother (Gill’s partner’s
biological son, who the two men are also raising).
 Martin Gill with the two brothers he hopes to adopt in Florida.
Today the boys, now four and eight years old, have many
friends in their North Miami neighborhood, are doing well in school, and are
close with the couple’s extended family, which includes two doting
grandmothers.A psychologist who
evaluated the boys recommended that it would be in the boys’ best interest to be
adopted by Gill, testifying that it would be devastating for the boys to remove
them from the home.
So that he can adopt the children, Gill is being represented
by the ACLU in a challenge to the constitutionality of Florida’s law that
automatically bans adoption by gay people.
STATUS: On November 25,
2008, a juvenile court judge granted the adoption.The attorney general's office immediately filed its notice of appeal. On December 5, 2008, the ACLU and the children's lawyers filed a request seeking to expedite the appeal by bringing the case directly before the Florida Supreme Court. The request for an expedited appeal was subsequently denied.
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