## Facts

- Florida law categorically barred adoption by any person who was a “homosexual,” construed to mean an applicant known to engage in current, voluntary homosexual conduct.
- Adult plaintiffs were gay men who served as foster parents or legal guardians to children in Florida’s child welfare system and sought to adopt the children in their care.
- Plaintiffs alleged the statute violated substantive due process rights (familial privacy, intimate association, family integrity, and sexual privacy) and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Plaintiffs sought injunctive relief and class certification.
- The federal district court denied class certification and granted summary judgment for the state officials, upholding the statute.

## Issues

1. Whether Florida’s categorical ban on adoption by practicing homosexuals violates substantive due process by burdening a fundamental right, including any right to adopt or to preserve foster/guardian family relationships through adoption.
2. Whether the statute violates substantive due process by impermissibly penalizing protected sexual intimacy.
3. Whether the statute violates equal protection by classifying on the basis of sexual orientation, and what level of scrutiny applies.
4. Whether the statute survives constitutional review under rational-basis scrutiny.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendants and upheld the statute.
- The court held there is no fundamental constitutional right to adopt, and the claimed foster/guardian relationships did not create a fundamental liberty interest requiring heightened scrutiny.
- The court concluded the statute did not implicate a fundamental right to sexual privacy in a manner that triggered heightened scrutiny.
- The court applied rational-basis review to both due process and equal protection challenges.
- The court held Florida had a rational basis for preferring adoption placements that the legislature viewed as optimal, including placements with married, heterosexual parents.

## Legal Principles

- Adoption is a state-created legal status; absent a recognized fundamental right, regulations governing eligibility for adoption are reviewed under rational-basis scrutiny.
- Substantive due process protects certain established parent–child relationships, but foster-care and guardianship arrangements created within the state system are subject to substantial state control and do not automatically confer a fundamental right to adopt.
- Neither due process nor equal protection requires heightened scrutiny for sexual-orientation-based adoption restrictions absent Supreme Court recognition of a suspect or quasi-suspect class or a burden on a fundamental right.
- Under rational-basis review, a legislature may act on predictive judgments and policy preferences in the child-welfare context; imperfect fit, underinclusiveness, and disputed social science evidence do not by themselves render a classification unconstitutional.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit upheld Florida’s categorical prohibition on adoption by practicing homosexuals, ruling that adoption is a statutory benefit subject to broad state regulation and that the law did not burden a fundamental right or trigger heightened scrutiny; the statute was sustained as rationally related to the state’s asserted child-welfare interests.


Lofton v. Sec’y of the Dep’t of Child. & Fam. Servs., 358 F.3d 804 (11th Cir. 2004)