Martin Gill and his partner are great parents to the two boys they’ve raised for the past five years.

That’s the official conclusion of social workers who have monitored the home more closely than most.

But Gill will be back in a courtroom today to hear a lawyer argue that he shouldn’t be able to adopt the two boys that he has raised as a foster parent since the older boy was four years old and the younger one was an infant.

During a Wednesday hearing, attorneys for the state of Florida say they will ask a state appeals court overturn a detailed trial court decision that allowed Gill to adopt the two children despite Florida’s 31-year-old ban on adoption by gay people. The trial court judge ruled that the adoption ban is unconstitutional.

The Third District Court of Appeal will hear oral arguments from attorneys for both Gill and the Florida Department of Children & Families, which has been fighting the gay North Miami man's efforts to adopt two boys he has raised in foster care since 2004, Miami Herald reports. The two half-brothers were badly neglected and finally transferred to DCF's care due to their mother's cocaine addiction.

Judi Spann, deputy chief of staff of DCF, claimed that the agency's guiding light in the case, as in all cases, is “the best interests” of the children.

But said Hilarie Bass, a Greenberg Traurig attorney who is representing the two boys, said the best interest of the boys is to stay with their parents. “The children have thrived with their foster parents, and even DCF had to agree that it was in their best interest for that foster parent to adopt them,” she said.

But state lawyers will argue against the adoption nonetheless.

Florida lawyers will argue today against adoption by gay man [contd.]

They say the judge who allowed Gill to adopt the children “legislated from the bench” and that state lawmakers should decide the matter.

They will ask the appeals court to overturn a ruling issued last November by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman. In a decision that parsed 30 years' worth of psychological and sociological research on child-rearing and sexuality.

She declared Florida's ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians unconstitutional, after hearing testimony the best arguments that opponents of adoption could bring against the case she was hearing. A wide array of expert witnesses appeared before her to testify on both sides of the case.

She ruled that there is no rational basis for the kind of sweeping intolerance encoded in adoption ban. As Lederman said, “Sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person’s ability to parent.”

Said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which represents Gill: “For far too long, the welfare of children trapped in Florida's scandal-ridden foster-care system has been held hostage to ugly anti-gay bigotry.”

“Martin Gill has provided a nurturing home for these now-thriving brothers -- ironically, at the state's request -- and state officials are tasked with defending a law that may serve a political purpose, but is repudiated by every professional organization with expertise in the rearing of healthy children,” Simon said.

Florida is the only state that excludes all gay men and lesbians from adopting, though it allows gay and lesbian foster parents, according to the Herald. Last year, voters in Arkansas passed a measure forbidding adoption by any unmarried after a court there dismissed a state rule excluding gay people from fostering children.

Legal experts say the dispute will ultimately be decided by the Florida Supreme Court.

Source: Florida's ban on gay adoptions headed to court - Breaking News - MiamiHerald.com