Gov. Rick Scott said Wednesday that he doesn't have any immediate plans to change the state policy on gay adoptions but he remains opposed to it -- as does his new appointee to the agency that handles adoptions of children in state care.
``I believe that adoption should be by a married couple,'' Scott told reporters and editors at the annual Associated Press planning session in Tallahassee.
Scott's opposition to gay adoption is in line with his new appointee, David Wilkins, whom he named secretary of the Department of Children & Families on Tuesday.
Wilkins, who retired last year as global managing director of sales for Accenture Health and Public Service business, has also served as the finance chief for the Florida Baptist Children's Home, a private agency that allows only ``professing Christians'' to adopt children in its care.
Scott said he and Wilkins have not discussed whether to attempt to challenge an appeals court ruling from Miami-Dade that said the state law banning gays and lesbians from adopting is unconstitutional. Shortly after that ruling, DCF said it would no longer enforce the ban.
Scott spokesman Brian Burgess said the governor has no plans to revive the ban on gay adoptions at this time.
``The governor's priority is job creation and not setting new legal precedent at DCF,'' Burgess said.
Florida's law banning adoption by gay men and lesbians was struck down last summer by Miami-Dade's Third District Court of Appeal in a case brought by Martin Gill, a Miami man who spent six years trying to adopt two foster children who had suffered serious neglect.
Scott's remarks Wednesday came the same day Gill's adoption of the two brothers was finalized in a ceremony in the Miami courtroom of Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman.
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