Gay adoption bill advances

The Florida House passed a bill to let private adoption agencies turn away gay couples based on religious and moral grounds. Conservatives sponsored the measure as a response to a bill that the House passed last month to take an unenforced gay adoption ban out of state law.

The 75-38 vote came after more than an hour of debate, with Republicans saying the measure was needed to protect religious rights.

Republican Rep. Jason Brodeur of Sanford said the measure wasn’t about discrimination, and said gay couples would still have dozens of agencies — state agencies and those not faithbased, for example — that didn’t object to gay adoptive parents.

Democrats expressed doubt about the motivation for the bill, which now goes to the Senate. That chamber rejected similar language in a separate adoption bill.