Law forbidding gay adoption ensnares couple in politically charged Miami courtroom battle

Vanessa Alenier's fight to raise an infant relative seized by state child welfare administrators ended up Wednesday exactly where she had hoped it wouldn't: in a Florida courtroom filled with lawyers and advocates on both sides of the state's politically charged gay adoption law.

Alenier, who accepted custody of her relative after the state Department of Children & Families seized him from a mother they declared unfit, had hoped her adoption of the boy would occur quietly and without the political spectacle that had surrounded previous adoptions by gay Floridians. But on Wednesday morning, Alenier and her partner, Melanie Leon, sat quietly as a three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeal heard arguments by attorneys on both sides.

"This isn't what we wanted," Alenier said following the hearing. "We just wanted a quiet adoption."

Alenier took custody of the baby boy just days after he was born on Jan. 9, 2009. She fostered the child before requesting an adoption - which Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia approved last January.

more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/law-forbidding-gay-adoption-ensnares-couple-in-politically-905592.html