DCF appealing adoption by gay woman

A Hollywood lesbian is battling the state over custody of her infant cousin.
 
Vanessa Alenier became a parent after child welfare workers seized the child from one of her relatives and extended family suggested she take custody. A half-year later, Alenier asked the court to approve the boy’s adoption and the judge concured.

Last month, the Department of Children and Families appealed the adoption, creating the third challenge to Florida’s gay-adoption law.

“Until there is a unified appellate court decision on this issue, we are bound by Florida statute to defend and adhere to the law,” Joe Follick, spokesperson for the DCF told The Miami Herald. 

During a previous appeal, the DCF wasn’t able to offer a single witness or any testimony to suggest the child was receiving anything other than love and secure home from Alenier and her partner, Melanie Leon.

Alenier’s attorney, Alan Mishael, has handled two of the state’s three successful adoptions by gay people.

“Instead of leaving this family alone, DCF wants to break it up and is spending taxpayer dollars trying to do so,”’ Mishael told The Miami Herald.

“All I want to do is be a mother to this baby,” Alenier said in a statement. “I was hoping that this was a signal that [DCF] Secretary George Sheldon might do the right thing in our case, but I can now see that I was mistaken. All Melanie and I can hope is that we are being put through this to help clear the way for others.”

There have been other rulings against Florida’s antiquated law banning adoption by gay people. On Aug. 29, 2008, Monroe Circuit Judge David J. Audlin signed an order declaring the law unconstitutional, clearing the way for Wayne LaRue Smith, a Key West lawyer, to adopt a son he had been raising in foster care.

The next month, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman allowed Frank Martin Gill, a North Miami man who also declared himself as gay on adoption papers, to adopt two half brothers. Like Smith, Gill had been raising the boys in foster care. The DCF did appeal that case, and it’s currently under review by Third District Court of Appeal in Miami.