Officials with the Florida-based public-interest legal group Liberty Counsel said they filed the action because the First Amendment requires the mandatory association to keep neutral on controversial or political issues that have nothing to do with 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," said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law.

"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," he said.

Petitioners include Liberty Counsel, Liberty Counsel President Anita Staver and Scott Dixon, an affiliate attorney for the organization.

The controversy erupted after the Florida Bar Board of Governors last month voted to authorize its Family Law Section to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the 3rd District Court of Appeals opposing the 1977 Florida law prohibiting anyone engaged in homosexual activity from adopting children in the state.

The new case cites the 1990 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Keller v. State Bar of California that found mandatory bar associations like the Florida bar cannot use member dues "to support ideological causes which are not germane to the goals of regulating the legal profession and improving the quality of legal service."

Liberty Counsel previously sent a letter to the Florida bar, demanding that it remain neutral. But John White II, the president, responded that the bar did, in fact, authorize a brief in the case and had "no intentions of rescinding its January 30 vote regarding this amicus brief."

The state law under challenge previously was affirmed by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, which has worked with Liberty Counsel on a number of cases, contended the precedents are clear.

"The Florida Bar which I am required as lawyer to be a member of, needs to remain a professional association that regulates attorneys and educates them," he said. "The bar should not inject itself into the culture war and take positions on divisive issues to its membership like gay adoption. The bar can not require attorneys and judges to pay mandatory dues and then become an advocate on disputed political and moral issues. This violates the First Amendment rights of dissenting members of the bar."

In the case that prompted the dispute, a Miami-Dade circuit judge ruled Florida's 30-year ban on "gay" adoption unconstitutional, allowing a homosexual man to adopt two foster children who have been in his care since 2004.

Judge Cindy Lederman issued a 53-page order allowing Frank Gill, 47, and his "gay" partner to legally adopt the 4- and 8-year-old boys they've been raising.

''This is the forum where we try to heal children, find permanent families for them so they can get another chance at what every child should know and feel from birth, and go on to lead productive lives,'' Lederman told the court. "We pray for them to thrive, but that is a word we rarely hear in dependency court.''

The bar association stated online that its action doesn't create a formal endorsement of homosexuality but simply recognizes that the family division addresses such issues.

Family Law Section chief Scott Rubin said in the report the mission is looking out for children.

"And we have been troubled by the inequality of children who have been in foster homes with heterosexual parents and can achieve their legislatively correct right of permanency, but children in homes of homosexual foster parents cannot," he said.

Four years ago, the association's board rejected overwhelmingly a request for its family law section to lobby to change the state law, citing philosophical differences among members.