Court asked to stop family law section's gay adoption amicus: bar says allowing a section to file an amicus does not constitute a formal endorsement of the position.

Saying it must defend lawyers' First Amendment rights, Liberty Counsel has filed a petition with the Florida Supreme Court to stop The Florida Bar's Family Law Section from filing an amicus brief in support of a trial judge's ruling declaring Florida's gay adoption ban unconstitutional.

"The First Amendment demands that The Florida Bar remain neutral on matters that do not relate to the regulation of attorneys. The Bar cannot force attorneys and judges to pay mandatory dues and then position itself as an adversary against them on controversial ideological issues. Florida attorneys want peace, not war, but The Florida Bar has given us no choice, and we will vigorously defend our liberty under the First Amendment," Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg, Virginia, said in a prepared statement.

Liberty Counsel describes itself as a nonprofit public interest law firm with a mission of "restoring the culture one case at a time by advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and the traditional family."

The Petition for Injunctive Relief Pendente Lite, Prospective Injunctive Relief and/or other Extraordinary Relief in Case No. 09-363, was filed February 27 against The Florida Bar Board of Governors, Bar President Jay White, and Bar Executive Director John F. Harkness, Jr.

Barry Richard, outside counsel for The Florida Bar, said the primary issue is that membership in the Family Law Section is entirely voluntary and no one has to join and pay its $55 annual dues.

"The Florida Supreme Court has recognized in the past that sections can engage in political ideology that the Bar cannot," Richard said.

The Board of Governors, Richard said, did not endorse and took no action on behalf of the entire Florida Bar, when it voted not to stand in the way of the Family Law Section filing an amicus brief in the case that will be written by a volunteer, Cynthia Greene, a former Family Law Section chair.

On January 30, the Board of Governors voted unanimously (with one recusal) to allow the Family Law Section to file an amicus brief supporting 11th Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman's November 25, 2008, decision to declare F.S. [section]63.042(3) unconstitutional and to allow homosexual foster parents to adopt two brothers they had nurtured for four years.

"The Board of Governors has woven a web that has entangled itself, the 86,000-plus members of The Florida Bar, and even the judiciary in a...