A Miami child welfare judge Tuesday declared Florida's 31-year-old ban on adoption by gay people unconstitutional, rejecting the state's claim that the law promotes public morality and the best interests of foster children who may be harmed by same-sex parents.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman approved the adoption of two half-brothers, identified only as John and James Doe, by Frank Gill, a gay North Miami man who has raised the two foster children since they were brought to him in December 2004 by a state child abuse investigator. The boys now are 8 and 4 years old.

''John and James left a world of chronic neglect, emotional impoverishment and deprivation to enter a new world, foreign to them, that was nurturing, safe, structured and stimulating,'' Lederman wrote. ``They are a family, a good family, in every way except the eyes of the law.''

And though Gill and advocates for gay rights and foster children praised the ruling as a sensible way to find needed families for abused and neglected children, lawyers for the state immediately vowed to defend the prohibition against gay adoption, saying the law protects fragile foster children from an unhealthy lifestyle.

Shortly after Lederman released her ruling in court Tuesday morning, Assistant Attorney General Valerie J. Martin, who had defended the law during a weeklong trial Oct. 1-6, said the state had filed a notice of their intention to appeal to the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami-Dade.

''We respect the court's decision,'' Martin added.

STATE STANDS ALONE

Florida is the only state that excludes all gay men and lesbians from adopting -- though it allows gay and lesbian foster parents. Last month, voters in Arkansas passed a measure forbidding adoption by single people after a court there dismissed a state rule excluding gay people from fostering children.

The fate of the controversial law is likely to be decided by the Florida Supreme Court, to which Gov. Charlie Crist is expected to appoint at least two new judges in coming months. Crist, a former attorney general who has expressed support for the adoption ban, declined to comment Tuesday, saying he hadn't yet reviewed the ruling.

While praising Gill and his longtime partner as ''wonderful foster parents,'' Neil Skene, a spokesman for the Department of Children & Families, said the agency will continue to defend the state law in search of ''finality'' on state adoption policy.

''We are appealing because we don't want to litigate this issue every time there's another adoption petition,'' Skene said.

Gill, 47, flanked by his mother and a gaggle of attorneys, wept in court after Lederman released her ruling, which said the two boys ''shall, from this day forth'' assume new names to reflect their new parentage. The brothers' birth parents lost the right to raise them due to severe neglect, records show.

''Our family just got a lot more to be thankful for this Thanksgiving,'' Gill said.

The ban on adoption by gay families, Gill said, does not lead to more children being raised in traditional households, since foster and adoptive families have long been in short supply in Florida. Instead, he said, ``It results in more children being left without any parents at all. They don't have a mom or a dad.''

Currently, 3,535 Florida children are awaiting adoption after their parents' right to raise them was terminated.

SECOND TIME

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