The caseworkers who conducted the pre-adoption home studies treated Ray and Matt Lees as a couple. Results of background checks and financial reviews and observations about their relationship and the condition of their large suburban home added up to a pleasing portrait.
“Together, you are a great family,” Matt said, paraphrasing a caseworker’s summary. “But now, from a legal perspective, we are going to remove one of you from the equation.”
Because same-sex couples cannot marry, they cannot jointly adopt in Ohio and several other states that prohibit second-parent adoption. That should remind Americans that the nation’s long-running debate about gay marriage is a child-welfare issue, too, advocates for same-sex couples say.
It’s also an issue that is being pushed to the forefront by growing numbers of those couples who are turning to, and often being embraced by, agencies seeking permanent homes for tens of thousands of foster children.
According to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, adoptive parenting is on the rise among same-sex couples in the U.S. About 19 percent of same-sex couples who are raising kids reported having at least one adopted child in 2009, nearly double the 10 percent who reported adopting in 2000, the institute said.
For Surrogacy service
Read more... http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/05/27/gay-families-struggle-to-safeguard-adopted-kids.html
“Together, you are a great family,” Matt said, paraphrasing a caseworker’s summary. “But now, from a legal perspective, we are going to remove one of you from the equation.”
Because same-sex couples cannot marry, they cannot jointly adopt in Ohio and several other states that prohibit second-parent adoption. That should remind Americans that the nation’s long-running debate about gay marriage is a child-welfare issue, too, advocates for same-sex couples say.
It’s also an issue that is being pushed to the forefront by growing numbers of those couples who are turning to, and often being embraced by, agencies seeking permanent homes for tens of thousands of foster children.
According to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, adoptive parenting is on the rise among same-sex couples in the U.S. About 19 percent of same-sex couples who are raising kids reported having at least one adopted child in 2009, nearly double the 10 percent who reported adopting in 2000, the institute said.
For Surrogacy service
Read more... http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/05/27/gay-families-struggle-to-safeguard-adopted-kids.html
No comments:
Post a Comment