Lofton v. Secretary of Ministry of Children & amp; Family Services is the decision of the United States Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit enforcing a Florida ban on adopting children by homosexuals as upheld by the Florida Department of Children and Family.
Video Lofton v. Secretary of the Department of Children & Family Services
Federal District Court
The plaintiffs who applied for adoption and their application were denied because they were homosexual. Four of the plaintiffs are legal guardians or foster parents of children, who are also plaintiffs. They filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, asking him to enforce the law. They are also looking for class certification for everyone who is in the same place.
The court considered five questions as to whether the law violates:
- the right to family privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment
- the right to intercourse
- the right to family integrity
- the right to sexual privacy
- same protection based on sexual orientation
On August 21, 2001, James Lawrence King District Court judge rejected class certification and provided a summary verdict supporting the defendant.
Maps Lofton v. Secretary of the Department of Children & Family Services
Court of Appeal
The court noted that "adoption is not a right; it is a legal privilege" and that adoption is wholly a state creature. It then noted that in "formulating adoption policies and procedures, the State of Florida acts in a protective and temporary role in loco parentis for children who, due to various circumstances, have become state wards, so the adoption law is unlike criminal law, for example, in which the most important substantive attention does not interfere with the interests of individual freedom "and that it" also differs from such contexts as government-benefit feasibility schemes or access to public forums, where treatment equality is the primary concern. "The court stated that" the state's primary interest is in the best interest of children who want to be placed with host families ", and" the state may make a classification for the purpose of adoption which will be constitutionally suspect in many other arenas ".
Because adoption is a public act, the plaintiffs "ask the state to give official recognition - and, consequently, the highest degree of constitutional isolation from subsequent state disruption". The Court notes that "the applicants have not mentioned to us, nor have we found, a precedent in which the Supreme Court or one of our sister circuits has been subjected to constitutional challenges to adoption or practice schemes by individuals other than natural parents, and even many challenges by natural parents have failed ".
The court dismisses family integrity claims. It is argued that in the argument that there is a fundamental right to family integrity, "the petitioners argue [d] that parental and family rights should be extended to individuals such as foster parents and legal guardians and that the touchstone of interest is not a biological bond or recognition official law, but the emotional bond that develops between and among individuals as a result of daily life together ". The Court concluded that the plaintiff "can not have" justified expectations of propriety in their relationship and that even if permanent hope is formed, "[t] it generates the most liberty interest will provide for procedural procedural legal protection in the case of the state seeking to exclude [ children] of Doe or Roe "and that" [s] procedural rights are not translated, however, it becomes a substantive right to be free from state inference nor does it create an affirmative right to be given official recognition as "parent" and "child."
In dealing with claims of sexual privacy, the Court first asked whether sexual privacy is a fundamental right. The plaintiffs argue that "the recent Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which crashed into Texas sodomy laws, identified unassigned basic rights for personal sexual intimacy, "The Court notes that wherever in Lawrence it is announced that homosexual sodomy is a fundamental right and that it does not permit the adoption of anyone who chooses to engage in homosexual behavior. that Lawrence does not "find this right directly in the Constitution, but instead treats it as a by-product of several different constitutional principles and interests of liberty." He notes that the Supreme Court has "taken the maximum care whenever [requested] ] to break new ground "in the area of ​​fundamental rights" It also notes that Lawrence does not use "oversight at the correct standard when fundamental rights are implied, but instead annul the Texas law on rational grounds "and that" the right of freedom expressed is not a negative right to engage in personal conduct without facing criminal sanctions, but the affirmative right to accept official and public recognition ". The Court concluded that "Lawrence's decision can not be extrapolated to create the right to adopt for homosexual people.
In the face of equal protection challenges, the Court uses rational basic standards, refusing to state that homosexuals are a class of suspects. He notes that "a baseline review, a judicial restraining paradigm, does not grant a license for the courts to assess the policies, justice or logic of legislative choice." The defendants-appellees argue that the law "is rationally linked to Florida's interest in advancing the best interests of adopted children by placing them in families with married mothers and fathers" and that "the prohibition of adoption into homosexual homes, which is always without a mother or orphaned and lack of stability that comes with marriage, is a rational means to expand Florida's interest in promoting adoption by marital families. "Plaintiffs argue that" irrational laws are linked to these interests ", being" over-inclusive and underinclusive. " The Court rejected the arguments of the petitioners, stating that "the Florida legislature can rationally conclude that homosexuals and heterosexual singles are not" the same lies in terms of relevance. "It is not rational to think that heterosexual singles have a much greater probability of ultimately forming marriage households and, thus, providing their adopted children with a stable dual-gender parenting environment.In addition, as noted by the state, legislatures can act rationally on the theory that single heterosexuals, even if they never married, have a better position than homosexual individuals to provide children who are adopted with education and counseling relative to their sexual development throughout puberty and adolescence. The Court rejected the comparison with Romer v. Evans notes that "Florida law is not so" [s] crying and comprehensive "to make Florida's argument for the law" can be explained by anything but the animus "against his homosexual Residents Amendment 2 removes homosexuals of people "protection against the exclusion of an almost unlimited number of transactions and businesses that are ordinary civil lives in a free society." In contrast to this broad and indistinguishable defect, the Florida classification is limited to the narrow and discrete context of access to the privileges of adoption law27 and, more importantly, have a sensible relationship with the stated state's interest. In addition, not only the Florida classification effect is dramatically smaller, but the classification itself is narrower.Classification 2 includes both behavior and status, the limited Florida adoption ban do.So, we conclude that Romer's unique and factual situations of ownership are narrow does not fit this case. "thus, the Court rejects the same protection claim.
Plaintiff filed a petition for en bhe rehearing, which was rejected. Judge Rosemary Barkett disagreed with the rehearing rejection, noting that "[w] Florida hile claims that they have chosen homosexuals for wanting to limit adoption to married couples, the law in this case does not say at all about married couples. , Florida adoption legislation strictly arranges for one person to adopt ".
The plaintiffs petitioned the Supreme Court for a certiorari certi fi cate. It was rejected.
Next Developments
The Florida ban on homosexuals adopted children was then challenged in Florida state court. In In Gill back and found unconstitutional under the Florida State Constitution on September 22, 2010 by a Florida state court appeal. The state has not appealed any further decision to end the Florida ban.
Comparison with Cook v. Gates
Instead, the First Circuit held at Cook v. Gates, 528 F.3d 42 (1st Cir. 2008), which enhances the supervision applied to the process of licensing sexual privacy due to substantive processes, as opposed to the rational basis of the reviews used by Circuit 11 at Lofton .
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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