by Debra Lobel

Created on: April 25, 2009

Gay adoption basics. This title makes no sense. To me it means that one is trying to adopt someone who is gay. That leaves out adopting children who have not decided what their sexual preference is. Or maybe it is a new version of domestic partners and has nothing to do with parent-child relationships. It is an excellent way to make sure that two people have a legal relationship and can share health benefits and have inheritance rights. They can live together and not be subjected to other people's intolerance of "alternative lifestyles".

But unfortunately, I believe this title means that people who are gay are different. They don't get to adopt children the way non-gay people can. Adoption agencies will not recognize them as a couple, even if they have been married in a state that legalizes gay marriage or if they've had a ceremony that declares their love and commitment to each other. There are agencies and governments throughout the world who absolutely refuse to allow gay people to adopt. The problem is not that gay people want to adopt children, but that there are people in this world who feel they can make judgments about who should give a child a loving home.

Fortunately for my partner and me, we live in an area of the world that supports and even encourages gays and lesbians to adopt children. It is obvious to some that children do better living in a loving and safe environment no matter what the parent's sexual preference is. There are so many children in this world that need a home due to circumstances created by their non-gay parents.

My oldest son is my partner's biological son. I adopted him when he was an adult so I could be recognized as his parent and have a legal parent-child relationship with him especially when it comes to health and death issues. His biological father is around but has never parented him. I am more like his parent than "dad" is.

After my partner and I had a commitment ceremony, we decided we wanted to have more children. We tried insemination - both uterus's, but that didn't work. We tried going through lawyers and adoption agencies, but that was expensive and frustrating. Then we got a call from agencies whose business was to find families for children in the foster system who could not be taken care of by their (usually) non-gay parents. We decided to adopt one of the 25,000 children in our state's foster system who were destined to stay in the foster system for the rest of their childhood or be sent to group homes.

The process was tedious. We had to go to classes on raising children with "challenges". Most of the children came from broken and/or abusive homes. Or they were "difficult" to be adopted because they had siblings or over 3 years old. We also had to go through a background check, home inspections, CPR classes, first aid classes, and we were just down right scrutinized.

In the end, it was worth it. We adopted two children from the foster system. Their birth certificates have names of two women as their parents. Our three sons are all different from each other and no one looks like anyone else. Our love for each other makes us a family. And that is the basics of ANY adoption.

Learn more about this author, Debra Lobel.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.