Opinion ID: 76424
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Foster Care and Legal Guardianship

Text: 53 Noting that Florida law permits homosexuals to become foster parents and permanent guardians, appellants contend that this fact demonstrates that Florida must not truly believe that placement in a homosexual household is not in a child's best interests. 21 We do not find that the fact that Florida has permitted homosexual foster homes and guardianships defeats the rational relationship between the statute and the state's asserted interest. We have not located and appellants have not cited any precedent indicating that a disparity between a law and its enforcement is a relevant consideration on rational-basis review, which only asks whether the legislature could have reasonably thought that the challenged law would further a legitimate state interest. Thus, to the extent that foster care and guardianship placements with homosexuals are the handiwork of Florida's executive branch, they are irrelevant to the question of the legislative rationale for Florida's adoption scheme. 22 To the extent that these placements are the product of an intentional legislative choice to treat foster care and guardianships differently than adoption, the distinction is not an irrational one. Indeed, it bears a rational relationship to Florida's interest in promoting the nuclear-family model of adoption since foster care and guardianship have neither the permanence nor the societal, cultural, and legal significance as does adoptive parenthood, which is the legal equivalent of natural parenthood. Fla. Stat. § 63.032(2). 54 Foster care and legal guardianship are designed to address a different situation than permanent adoption, and the legislature must be allowed leeway to approach a perceived problem incrementally. Beach Communications, 508 U.S. at 316, 113 S.Ct. at 2102. The fact that [t]he legislature may select one phase of one field and apply a remedy there, neglecting the others, does not render the legislative solution invalid. Id. (citation omitted); Heller, 509 U.S. at 321, 113 S.Ct. at 2643 (The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations — illogical, it may be, and unscientific.) (citation omitted). We conclude that the rationality of the statute is not defeated by the fact that Florida permits homosexual persons to serve as foster parents and legal guardians. 55