Lofton v. Secretary of the Department of Children and Family Services

Steven Lofton (plaintiff), an experienced pediatric nurse who had raised three HIV-positive Florida foster children, sought to adopt one of them, John Doe, but Florida law barred adoption by anyone engaged in current, voluntary homosexual activity; Lofton didn't answer his application's sexual-orientation question or identify his live-in partner, and his application was denied under the statute. Florida's child welfare agency (defendant) offered Lofton legal guardianship instead, but he declined because guardianship would jeopardize Doe's Medicaid eligibility and end his foster payments, protections he was unwilling to give up absent a path to permanent adoption. Lofton, Doe, and other plaintiffs sued the agency; after losing at trial, they appealed.