WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court steered clear of a dispute over gay adoptions yesterday, energizing conservatives who want other states to copy Florida's one-of-a-kind ban on gays adopting children.

In refusing to review the law, justices averted a second showdown over gay rights in two years. In 2003, the court barred states from criminalizing gay sex, a decision that brought strong criticism from conservative and religious groups.

Conservative groups, whose recent focus has been on blocking gay marriages, cheered yesterday's decision.

It "sends a huge message that the court is not going to be open to a broad-based homosexual agenda," said Mathew Staver, president of the Liberty Counsel in Orlando, Fla. Other states, he said, should start considering similar laws.

But opponents of the law said they were ready to combat efforts to duplicate it — and to encourage Florida lawmakers to repeal the ban.

"Whether kids should have two moms or two dads, it's always been a fake argument. What all the professional organizations say is sexual orientation has nothing to do with whether someone is a good or bad parent," said Matthew Coles, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney for four gay men who challenged the law.

Patricia Logue, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, said politicians talk about the dream mother-father family. "Tell it to the kid who's been waiting 16 years to be placed into one of those so-called ideal homes," she said. "It's a crime to leave these children sitting there to foster some ideological point of view."

Florida had more than 8,000 children awaiting adoption there in fiscal 2002, and there were 126,000 nationwide, according to the Child Welfare League of America.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has maintained that the children, often products of troubled and unstable backgrounds, should have a father and a mother.

The state's 1977 law prohibits gays from adopting children, either as couples or as single parents. Two other states restrict adoptions: Mississippi prohibits gay couples, but not gay individuals, from adopting, while Utah bars unmarried cohabiting couples — gay or heterosexual — from adopting.

Florida allows gays to be foster parents.

Florida's attorney, Casey Walker, told the Supreme Court, "It is rational to believe that children need male and female influences to develop optimally, particularly in the areas of sexual and gender identity, and heterosexual role modeling."

Walker said yesterday the law has survived repeated challenges. "Even though some may disagree with it as a policy matter, the place to change it is the Legislature and not the courts," he said.

The Florida appeal was filed by a group of gay men, including a father who has had the same foster children for 17 years.

In other cases yesterday:

Gun control: The court declined to consider dismissing a lawsuit seeking to hold gunmakers responsible for the 1999 shooting of a Los Angeles letter carrier by a white supremacist.

Nader: The justices declined to consider whether Pennsylvania officials were wrong to keep Ralph Nader off the presidential ballot last November.

Judges: The court said it would not speed up a decision on whether to consider a challenge to President Bush's authority to name William Pryor to a federal appeals court while the Senate was on a holiday break.

Traficant: The justices refused to consider former Rep. James Traficant's challenge to his bribery and racketeering conviction.

Ku Klux Klan: The court let stand a lower-court ruling that allowed Missouri's Ku Klux Klan chapter into the state highway litter-cleanup program. The state hadn't wanted to partner with the group because it discriminates based on race.