Florida adoption law has new challenge

MIAMI, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- A gay Florida man resumed his effort Wednesday to adopt two half-brothers who have been living in his foster home since 2004.

Frank Martin Gill and his American Civil Liberties Union attorney are asking Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman to grant Gill the right to become the boys' legal father, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.

The effort comes just one month after a Key West judge declared Florida's 31-year-old law prohibiting gay adoptions unconstitutional in a separate but narrow case brought by Gill and a team of ACLU lawyers.

Because the Key West ruling was not appealed to a higher court, lawyers say its significance as legal precedent is weak.

"What's at stake in this trial are two little boys getting to know that they get to stay at the only home they've ever known," said ACLU attorney Robert F. Rosenwald Jr.

The Florida Department of Children and Families and the state attorney general's office are opposing the adoption.