Florida Governor Jeb Bush is praising a federal appeals court decision upholding a state law that bars homosexuals from adopting children. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against four homosexual men who have been foster parents but wanted to formally adopt their children.

The homosexual adoption ban in Florida, the only one of its type in the country, was brought back in 1977 as a result of a campaign by pro-family activist Anita Bryant. Governor Bush says the ruling validates Florida's contention that "it is in the best interest of adoptive children, many of whom come from troubled and unstable backgrounds, to be placed in a home anchored both by a father and a mother."

In its case, the state argued that Florida has a right to legislate its "moral disapproval of homosexuality."

But the American Civil Liberties Union discounted the rationale that the 1977 ban was adopted to promote child welfare. The group noted that the state has permitted couples with alcohol and drug problems and with a history of domestic violence to adopt children -- and even some homosexual couples to become children's permanent legal guardians.

In the 11th Circuit's ruling, Judge Stanley Birch said the State of Florida determined that "it is not in the best interests of its displaced children to be adopted by individuals who 'engage in current, voluntary homosexual activity' -- and we have found nothing in the Constitution that forbids this policy judgment."

The court's opinion also made a strong statement against judicial activism. "The legislature is the proper forum for this debate," it said, "and we do not sit as a super legislature to award by judicial decree what was not achievable by political consensus."

Matt Coles, director of the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, says there can be no justification for the state's ban on homosexual adoptions "other than impermissible prejudice and hostility toward gay people."

But Mat Staver of the Florida-based legal group Liberty Counsel praised Thursday's decision. "In this age of judicial activism, it is refreshing to see a court assume its proper role and allow the people to set family policy," the attorney says in a press release, adding that common sense and human history both emphasize that children need a mother and a father.

In its opinion, the court also noted that even though some have argued that alternative child-rearing arrangements are satisfactory, no alternative arrangement "has proven as enduring as the marital family structure, nor has the accumulated wisdom of several millennia of human experience discovered a superior model."

Staver likes the endorsement of the traditional family unit. "Hopefully this decision will form a basis for other states to follow Florida's example of preserving family relationships that include a mom and a dad," he says.

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Liberty Counsel ( http://www.lc.org )

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