Lambda Legal Statement on U.S. Supreme Court Declining To Hear Challenge To Florida's Ban on Gay People Adopting Children

(Washington, January 10, 2005) — Lambda Legal issued the following statement today on the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear a case challenging Florida's ban on gay people adopting children. The case challenging the Florida law was filed by the ACLU; Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case at the federal appeals court. The statement is from Patricia Logue, Senior Counsel at Lambda Legal.

"This case deserved to be heard. Florida's law keeps thousands of children in state care and out of permanent loving homes -- solely because the state wants to express disapproval of gay people. More than anything else, this is a sad day for children in Florida. Florida's blanket exclusion of gay parents is at odds with the policies of 49 other states. While different states have different views on gay people, every other state puts children's needs before anything else.

"The Supreme Court declines to hear thousands of cases every year. Just today, the Supreme Court declined to hear 469 cases, sent one case back to a lower court and didn't agree to hear a single case. In declining to hear a case, the Supreme Court isn't weighing in on the case's merits. Just as the Supreme Court wasn't ruling in favor of marriage for same-sex couples a few weeks ago when it declined to hear a case from Massachusetts, it did not rule against adoption by gay people today. It's impossible to know why the Supreme Court declines to hear a case.

"It's a crime to let prejudice keep children from being adopted. Gay and lesbian people across the country are providing permanent, loving homes to children. No other state in the country has a law that completely bans lesbian and gay people from adopting children. Meanwhile, Florida is letting antigay bigotry determine its adoption policies while thousands of children in the state wait years to be adopted. Florida's adoption ban causes senseless harm and is a cloud on the Sunshine State that we hope the state legislature will lift."

-- Patricia Logue, Senior Counsel at Lambda Legal

Logue wrote Lambda Legal's friend-of-the-court brief in the Florida adoption case at the federal appeals court, and she was one of the lead attorneys on Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down all of the nation's sodomy laws in 2003. She played a key role in several other U.S. Supreme Court cases over the last decade, including Dale v. Boy Scouts of America and Romer v. Evans. Over the last several years, Logue has litigated numerous cases on behalf of lesbian and gay parents.