Fla. adoption backers pin hopes on gay man

MIAMI, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Gay adoption proponents in Florida are pinning their hopes on a North Miami man who's challenging a state law banning the practice, observers say.

Advocates say they are backing Martin Gill, a flight attendant who lives with his partner of nine years and the partner's own son, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.

The newspaper said Gill is seeking to adopt two boys -- half-brothers whom he's cared for as a foster parent for nearly five years, since they were 4 years old and 4 months old. Social workers reportedly agree that Gill would be approved for adoption if it weren't for Florida's 32-year-old ban.

Gill's ACLU attorney, Rob Rosenwald Jr. of Miami, told the Herald the case as "the most extensive legal challenge to the ban, presenting for the first time the world's foremost scientific authorities on children's welfare to demonstrate that gay households are as conducive to raising children as straight ones."

But Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, has vowed to defend the law, arguing that it is not in the best interests of children to be raised by homosexuals, the newspaper said.