California Approves LGBT History Lessons for Classrooms

References to gay Americans and events start in second grade.

SAN FRANCISCO—In second grade, California students will learn about families with two moms or two dads. Two years later, while studying how immigrants have shaped the Golden State, they will hear how New York native Harvey Milk became a pioneering gay politician in San Francisco.

California education officials approved those changes in classroom instruction Thursday to comply with the nation’s first law requiring public schools to include prominent gay people and LGBT-rights milestones in history classes.gay family values

The State Board of Education adopted the updates as part of a broader overhaul of California’s history and social-science curriculum. Dozens of people attending the meeting criticized the way Muslims, Hindus and Jews are discussed, but no one spoke out against the new treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

“We are proud to represent a diverse state, and we are proud that this framework reflects the state that we serve,” said Lauryn Wild, a Southern California curriculum specialist who chairs the advisory commission that produced the new guidelines.

They weave references to gay Americans and events throughout the history and social-science curriculum, starting in second grade through discussions about diverse families and again in fourth grade with lessons on California’s place in the gay-rights movement.

The guidelines also touch on the topics in fifth and eighth grade—looking at gender roles in the 18th and 19th centuries and examples of individuals who flouted them—and throughout high school.

A capstone of sorts will come in U.S. government courses, where seniors would learn about the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide and recent court cases involving bathroom access for transgender students.

The changes are designed to satisfy legislation passed by California lawmakers five years ago that added LGBT Americans and people with disabilities to the list of social and ethnic groups whose contributions schools are supposed to teach and must appear in kindergarten through eighth-grade textbooks.

The legislation also prohibited classroom materials that reflect adversely on gays or particular religions.

The law took effect in January 2012, but its implementation was slowed by opponents’ failed attempts to overturn it, competing educational priorities and budget cuts that stalled work on drafting recommendations for the school board and textbook purchases.

While some school districts and teachers made efforts to incorporate gay history since the law passed, many were nervous about tackling the topic without explicit guidance from the state, said Carolyn Laub, a consultant for a group of LGBT parents called Our Family Coalition.

“If educators perceive, rightly or wrongly, they may not get support from their administration if they face pushback from a parent who says, ‘I don’t want you talking to my kid about that,’ they are reluctant to do a whole lot of inclusion,” Ms. Laub said.

Associated Press  -July 14, 2016

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in Ethics / In the News / Parenting / Science  by Anthony Brown 1 comments

GOP Passes ‘Most Anti-LGBT Platform’ in History, Log Cabin Republicans Shocked

Led by some of the nation’s most anti-lgbt politicians and even the head of an anti-gay hate group, Republicans late Tuesday voted on and passed the final draft of the GOP 2016 platform.

The Log Cabin Republicans issued a fundraising email immediately, shocked, apparently, telling supporters, “moments ago, the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history.”politics, corrosive politics

 

“Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of “pray the gay away” — it’s all in there,” the email reads, as the Miami Herald’s Steve Rothaus reports.

“This isn’t my GOP, and I know it’s not yours either,” wrote Log Cabin President Gregory T. Angelo. “Heck, it’s not even Donald Trump’s!,” he claims, although that’s debatable.

“When given a chance to follow the lead of our presumptive presidential nominee and reach out to the LGBT community in the wake of the awful terrorist massacre in Orlando on the gay nightclub Pulse, the Platform Committee said NO.”

As NCRM has been reporting all week, along with passing an amendment calling for an unconstitutional “religious freedom” bill, the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) to become law, the GOP platform committee passed a plank that effectively says children raised in a “traditional” family are better off than children raised by same-sex parents or single parents.

thenewcivilrightsmovement.com, July 13, 2016

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in Ethics / In the News / Legislation / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 1 comments

10 Insights of Remarkable Parenting from a Family Therapist

At any given time you’ll find 4 or more parenting books on my Amazon wish list, a few by my nightstand, and an email box chock full of remarkable parenting theories and approaches. 

Granted, child development is my career, but I speak with plenty of parents in my practice who find themselves in similar circumstances. With information around every corner and our culture projecting constant messages (many times contradictory) regarding how we should raise our kids, feeling like a confident and intentional parent can seem out of reach many days.

In my 12 years as a family therapist, I’ve seen many well-intentioned parents mistakenly employing strategies that aren’t meeting the emotional or developmental needs of their children or families. I’ve also observed an increasing number of parents that are successfully mapping out new and healthier ways of raising children. 

These insights, collected over time and gleaned from experience, parallel what we know from current brain and behavioral research about what kind of parenting is most likely to contribute to the healthy development of children. more gay couples are embracing surrogacy

1 | Know that kids will act like kids. 

Often parents forget that the way a child’s learning begins is by screwing up. Making mistakes. Behaving immaturely. The ‘magic’ happens when a supportive caregiver then steps in to steer them in the right direction. We get frustrated and impatient, becoming annoyed with whininess and ‘back talk’ when really, this is how kids are wired. 

The part of the brain responsible for reason, logic and impulse control is not fully developed until a person reaches their early 20’s. Immature behavior is normal for immature human beings with immature brains. This is a scientific reality that helps us to be patient and supportive in order to guide our children when they struggle. 

2 | Set limits with respect, not criticism. 

Due to the fact that our kids need to learn literally everything about the world from us, they will require many limits throughout their day. Without proper limits in their environment, kids will feel anxious and out of control. 

Limits can be delivered in the form of criticism and shaming, or they can be communicated in a firm but respectful way.  Think about how you appreciate being spoken to at work and go from there.

3 | Be aware of developmental stages. 

Have you ever questioned where your easy-going toddler disappeared to as he was suddenly screaming bloody murder while getting dropped off at daycare? Hello separation anxiety! 

There are literally hundreds of very normal, very healthy transitions kids go through to become adults. Being aware of these puts their puzzling behaviors into context, and increases the odds of reacting to them accurately and supportively. 

4 | Know your child’s temperament and personality.

It seems pretty obvious, but if we are in tune with the characteristics that make our child unique, we will have a better understanding of when they may need additional support, and when and where they will thrive. 

Once you know the basics of what makes your child tick, many important areas become much easier to navigate, such as pinpointing the best environment for homework, or understanding why your daughter needs to come home from overnight summer camp.

5 | Give your child plenty of unstructured play time. 

Unless you studied play therapy in school, most adults will never fully understand and appreciate the power of play. 

Play is how kids learn all the things and develop all the stuff. This means leaving time each day for straight-up unstructured, kid-controlled, exploration of the world kind of play. 

6 | Know when to talk and when to listen. 

Kids learn to be pretty good problem solvers if we let them. Because we love the life out of them and want them to succeed, it’s hard not to jump in and solve problems for them by virtue of lecture or criticism.2

If parents more often held their tongues and waited it out, they’d be shocked at how often their children can successfully reach their own conclusions. Being heard is powerfully therapeutic, and it allows us to think things through and reach a solution.3

Kids want and need to be heard, and feel understood. Just like the rest of us.2

7 | Have an identity outside of your child. 

Many of us often claim that our children are our world, and this is certainly true in our hearts. In terms of daily life however, parents need to have more. We need to nurture the friendships, passions and hobbies that make us who we are as individuals. 

Doing this can feel like a battle, as our protective anxieties try to convince us our children can’t be without us, and also that we can’t be without them. But we can be, and need to be,in order to stay sane, and avoid saddling our kids with the task of meeting all of ouremotional needs.

by Angela Pruess, June 15, 2016  parent.co

in Parenting / Personal Stories / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

In win for gay couples, Maryland high court recognizes de facto parents rights

Maryland’s highest court has ruled that non-biological parents, de facto parents,  who live with and help raise children also have parental rights, overturning a 2008 decision that gay and lesbian advocates considered devastating to same-sex couples.

In a unanimous ruling issued Thursday, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that family-court judges can consider whether persons are de facto parents in custody and visitation cases. Advocates say Maryland was one of a few states that considered such parents strangers in the eyes of the law.

De facto parents can include the partner of a lesbian who undergoes artificial insemination, a gay man whose partner adopts a child from a country that does not allow same-sex couples to jointly adopt, or a straight man who raises a child with a woman for years without formal adoption.gay parents adoption

Until the 2008 court decision, such people generally had the ability to maintain some parental rights in Maryland even when their relationships with their partners crumbled.

Then the Court of Appeals ruled against a Baltimore County woman who sought custody or visitation rights with a girl who had been adopted by her ex-partner. The court said “third party” parents should not be treated differently from other third parties seeking custody. That meant they would need to show exceptional circumstances or that the legal parent was unfit in order to be awarded time with children they had helped raise.

This week’s ruling concerned a different case and reversed the precedent set by the court in 2008. Denying rights to third-party parents “is ‘clearly wrong’ and has been undermined by the passage of time,” Judge Sally Adkins wrote in the decision.

LGBT advocates hailed the ruling for correcting what they saw as a continuing injustice against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, even after voters legalized same-sex marriage in 2012.

“Now Maryland joins the majority of other states in taking those parents and children out of limbo and putting them in solid legal footing,” said Jer Welter, a lawyer with FreeState Justice who represented plaintiff Michael Conover in the case ruled on this week.

Mr. Conover is a transgender man who had married a woman before undergoing his gender transition. Their wedding took place in the District, which legalized same-sex marriage before Maryland did. Courts treated him and his ex-wife as a same-sex couple for the purpose of the dispute.

Brittany Conover gave birth in 2010 to a child, Jaxon, who was fathered by a sperm donor selected with the input of Mr. Conover, then known as Michelle, according to court records. The couple separated the next year and divorced in 2013.

Ms. Conover stopped allowing her spouse to visit in 2012. She argued in a later custody battle that her former partner never adopted Jaxon and was not listed as a parent on the child’s birth certificate.

Lower courts agreed that Mr. Conover lacked parental rights. The Court of Appeals ruling returns the case to a Washington County judge with the concept of a de facto parent restored in law.

“I am elated that the state’s highest court has ruled that people like me should have our relationships with our children legally protected,” Mr. Conover said in a statement.

R. Martin Palmer Jr., an attorney for Ms. Conover, said the court usurped the role of lawmakers in defining a parent and may have created a situation in which stepfathers can take control of children from capable mothers.

By Fenit Nirappil / The Washington Post, July 9, 2016

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in In the News / Legal / Second Parent Adoption / Step Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 1 comments

Judge: Lesbian has no parental rights because she didn’t marry partner

A woman whose same-sex relationship ended before same-sex marriage became legal doesn’t have parental rights to a child born to her partner in 2008, the Michigan appeals court said Wednesday.

The decision, which comes a year after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriage across the country, will stand as a key precedent in similar disputes in Michigan involving children who were raised by gays and lesbians in relationships that ended.

adoption for gay couples

over a white background

Michelle Lake and Kerri Putnam were together for 13 years until 2014 but didn’t marry during that time. Lake said she deserves to enjoy the rights that would have been granted to her if they had been married.

Putnam gave birth to a boy, now 8, during their relationship, but she no longer allows Lake to see him.

“We simply do not believe it is appropriate for courts to retroactively impose the legal ramifications of marriage onto unmarried couples several years after their relationship has ended,” the appeals court said. “That, in our view, is beyond the role of the judiciary.”

The court said Lake has no parental rights under Michigan law because the boy wasn’t born during a marriage.

Associated Press – July 7, 2016

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Same-Sex Couples Can Now Adopt In Every State

Yesterday, a federal judge ruled that Mississippi’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children is unconstitutional, making gay adoption legal in all 50 states.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, citing the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide last summer. The injunction blocks Mississippi from enforcing its 16-year-old anti-gay adoption law.

The Supreme Court ruling “foreclosed litigation over laws interfering with the right to marry and rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage,” Jordan wrote. “It also seems highly unlikely that the same court that held a state cannot ban gay marriage because it would deny benefits — expressly including the right to adopt — would then conclude that married gay couples can be denied that very same benefit.”

Mississippi HRC state director Rob Hill said this of the ruling:

Friday, July 1, 2016 via The Vital Voice

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in Adoption / Legal / Recently Added / Second Parent Adoption / Step Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Why seeing my gay son enter parenthood with twins made our relationship stronger

Early last month, my husband and I became grandparents for the first time, when my son and his husband became the fathers of twins.

There is a plethora of options for a gay couple to explore when they are considering parenthood. Adoption? Co-parenting? Surrogacy? Who will donate the egg and/or sperm? What are the legalities? And where do you even start such a process?

I am so very grateful — perhaps relieved is a better word — that my son and his husband live in a city with a large LGBTQ population. This has meant that from the moment they knew they wanted to become parents, they had access to a wealth of knowledge and experience. This is knowledge and experience that my husband and I, for lack of personal experience, simply couldn’t help them with.

The conversations I had with my son and son-in-law while they were taking their Daddies & Papas 2B program at a local LGBTQ community centre in downtown Toronto were some of most intimate and emotional conversations I have ever had with him. The roles in our relationship were completely reversed: the child was teaching the parent.Twins

It was a special time in my relationship with my son, and I will always cherish it.

You know who was even happier than John and me about the thought of babies? Our own parents. My father lived long enough to see my son marry the man he loved, but never knew that he would be the first of our three boys to have children. Still, the twins now have three great-grandparents who are healthy, and so very proud to talk about — and advocate for — gay marriage and same-sex parenthood.

I got to watch my mother hold a newborn girl named after her, and her great-grandson, named for my son’s grandfather-in-law. She marvelled at their perfection, and talked about the modern miracle of these babies’ conception and births through the egg donation of my son-in-law’s sister, and the generosity of a surrogate mother who carried the twins healthily to term. It was one of the most perfect moments in my life.

Sharing love. Sharing challenges. Supporting one another. Sharing wonder. This is how we family.

My grandchildren were born in June, which also happens to be Pride Month. What will they know of the struggles that brought us to the place where their daddies could be legally married? Will they know why, when PFLAG – the national organization to help with issues of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression – walks down Yonge Street during the Pride Parade in Toronto, men and women who are watching the parade from the sidewalk hold each other and sob?

My grandchildren are the son and daughter of two men who love each other so much that they were willing to take on the challenge of creating a family of their own in a world where that can be difficult, and resistant to such a thing. Financially, it is overwhelming. The legal paperwork is daunting. The persistence, the determination, the multitude of conversations, considerations and decisions that they tackled to get to parenthood makes me hopeful for their children. These babies are so wanted, and so deeply loved.

The day the twins were born, at around five in the evening, my husband and I assumed new roles. Since then I’ve been thinking of all of the books I’ll read to the children, and the songs we’ll sing. I’ll teach them to bake their father’s favourite cookies. I’ll take them to Young People’s Theatre. We’ll hike and we’ll bike. My husband is building special kid-friendly farm scenes into his model train set. In other words, we’ll become like any other loving grandparents who hope to do right by their children’s children — with one particular difference.

One Saturday night earlier this month, a gunman walked into a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., reminding us that the world is still a dangerous place for LGBTQ people, and for the people who love them.

He reminded me that as a mother, as a grandmother, and most basically as a human being, I have a responsibility to fight homophobia and transphobia.

Of course I am an ally — but in order to call myself an ally I have to be an active one. In doing things like walking with PFLAG in Toronto’s annual Pride Parade and in writing about my family, I am taking a stand for my son and his husband. I am vocally supporting all of the same- sex marriages and partnerships and the “gayby babies” that may result from those relationships.

June 29, 2016 by Patti Paddle, TVO.org

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in Family Stories / Personal Stories / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 2 comments

Same sex couples win court battle over child adoption discrimination

In a significant ruling on Tuesday, the Czech Republic’s Constitutional Court overturned a law which prevented individual gays and lesbians living in registered partnership from adopting children. The judge argued that such a ban was discriminatory, since gays and lesbians not living in such an official partnership are allowed to do so. However, the ruling does not allow same-sex partners to adopt children as a couple.

ays and lesbians in the Czech Republic can live in an officially registered partnership since 2016, when the Czech parliament changed the law. But while it granted the partners similar rights enjoyed by heterosexual married couples, such as rights to inheritance, it did not allow them to adopt children. That now has changed with Tuesday’s ruling of the Constitutional Court.adoption

Adéla Horáková, a lawyer for PROUD, a Czech initiative promoting the rights of homosexuals, says the ruling is a small step ahead, but stresses that there are still many further moves to take:

“It is something that was almost inevitable from the beginning of adoption of this provision, because it is clearly unconstitutional and illogical. There are many other inequalities given by law for same sex couples as parents or just as couples. One of them being the fact that they cannot get married, another can be that they cannot adopt jointly a child or that a partner may not adopt biological child of his or her partner, so called second parent adoption.”

The decision of the Constitutional Court is essential not only for some 1,800 gays and lesbians living in registered partnership, but also for those who might have postponed the registration due to the ban on adoption. Adéla Horáková says it is difficult to say how many people will actually take advantage of the ruling:

“It is hard to estimate how many gays and lesbians change their opinion or will feel the impulse to apply for adoption. We hope the more the better so that we can see more same sex parents adopting children and show the society they are just as capable and just as loving parents as anybody else.”

29-06-2016 15:02 | Ruth Fraňková, Radio.CZ

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in Adoption / In the News / International  by Anthony Brown 1 comments

New York Probate Process

The New York Probate Process controls the transfer of the assets of someone who dies in the state of New York with a Will.

What is the New York Probate Process? – Probate is the process by which the state of a decedent ensures that their Last Will and Testament was drafted and executed correctly, that the assets and debts of the decedent, the person who died, are identified, that the debts are paid and the assets are distributed according the decedent’s Will. The New York probate process governs the transfer of legal title of property from the estate of the person who has died to those named in that person’s Last Will and Testament.  The New York probate process is regulated by the Surrogate’s Court.  The Executor, a person or persons named in the Will to act as coordinator, or fiduciary, of the process, often works with a Probate attorney who handles the legal aspects of the process.

What happens in the New York Probate process? – The executor of a Will contacts a probate attorney to review the decedent’s Will, discuss the process draft and execute the probate petition.  The Surrogate’s Court clerk reviews the probate petition, a document filled out by the Probate attorney, to ensure that the proper parties and assets are listed.  Then the clerk checks the Will to make sure that it is compliant with New York law.  Prior to the submission of the petition to the court, certain relatives of the decedent are located and notified about their passing and given a copy of the Will for approval or challenge.

new york probate process

Why are relatives notified? – The process of notification and waiver ensures that anyone who would have received the decedent’s assets had they died without a Will is alerted and given a chance to dispute the Will if they have just grounds to do so.  The notification process operates on the premise that only those relatives most closely related to the decedent are contacted.  The state looks first to a legal spouse, then to children (both natural and adopted,) then to parents, then siblings, then aunts and uncles and finally to first cousins.  Notification is made to and a copy of the Will is sent only to the closest group of relatives.  If a married person dies, their spouse is the only person notified, and in most cases, is also the executor of the decedent’s estate.  If a legal spouse is dead but the decedent had 2 children, only those children would be notified and sent a copy of the Will for approval or challenge.  If there were no children in the scenario above, but there was a living parent, that parent would be asked to review the Will and sign a Waiver allowing it into probate.

Who can challenge a Will? – Because of the notification process and the uncertainty of exactly who will be alive upon someone’s death, a distant first cousin who may have had little or no relationship with the decedent will all of the sudden be asked to sign off on what may be a substantial estate, an estate that he or she would be the beneficiary of if there were no will.  The monetary incentive to dispute that Will then becomes clear.  However, if the Will is drafted by a competent attorney and is New York compliant in every way, the probability of a successful challenge is greatly diminished.  There are also techniques that a versed Nontraditional Estates attorney can employ to discourage a challenge from a distant family member.  Also, if someone drafts a “codicil,” or amendment, to a Will, anyone who was negatively affected by that codicil has standing to challenge a Will.  Finally, a beneficiary under a previous Will may challenge a subsequent Will, however, they are not required to be notified of the subsequent Will’s submission to probate.

How can a Will be challenged? – The New York probate process has specific procedures for a Will challenge. In most cases, a person who receives a notification of a probate proceeding and fails to consent to it, appears in court in what is called a citation hearing.  At that hearing, the judge makes sure that all parties were served correctly and then offers the challenging party the ability to hold what are called 1404 hearings.  1404 hearings allow a party to interview the witnesses to a Will execution, the attorney who drafted the Will and have access to the attorney’s notes prior to the death of the decedent.  If, after the 1404 hearings, the challenging party chooses, they may seek a trial to determine whether the decedent had capacity to execute a Will, whether there was fraud in the execution of the Will or whether there was coercion in the execution of the Will.  In most cases at the stage of the New York probate process, a case will settle in order to avoid excess costs and fees.

For more information about the New York probate process, contact Anthony M. Brown at Time for Families and speak to a specialist probate lawyer to answer your probate questions.

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in Estate Planning / Featured Articles / Legal  by Anthony Brown 1 comments

SCOTUS same-sex marriage ruling has allowed kids to have 2 legal parents, more stable homes and futures

When gay marriage became the law of the land last summer, Lin Quenzer and Barbara Baier were one of numerous gay couples in Nebraska eager to wed.

However, after 27 years together, a wedding cake and a marriage certificate weren’t their top priority. It was their son. They needed to wed to ensure their teenager would be legally bound to both parents for a lifetime and beyond — from every form that required a parental signature to each woman’s last will and testament.

After their summer wedding, the couple’s attorney immediately began drawing up adoption papers. A little over three months later, Robert Quenzer-Baier, then 15, was legally recognized as Quenzer’s son.

“He cried, we cried. We took pictures. It just meant the world to him. … He said ‘Nothing can take us apart now,’ ” recalled Quenzer, who is the Lincoln city ombudsman.

It was exactly a year ago today that the U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic same-sex marriage ruling, known as Obergefell v. Hodges. The ruling ended decades of debate and one of the biggest culture wars in America. It gave every gay couple in all 50 states the right to walk down the aisle.

But, as Quenzer’s adoption proceeding showed, the ruling had implications far beyond marriage. One of its greatest impacts was on the children of same-sex couples, many of whom were legally tied to only one parent because states such as Nebraska prohibited unmarried couples from adopting a child together.

Nebraska was one of the 13 states that did not allow gay marriage when the high court ruling came down. It had been legalized in the nation’s other states through a patchwork of court or legislative actions. In neighboring Iowa, for example, gay marriage had been legal since 2009 because of an Iowa Supreme Court decision.

On the day of the ruling, some Nebraska couples rushed to their local county clerk’s offices to secure marriage licenses. For a few days, gay marriage ceremonies were a novelty on the wedding circuit.

Some people continue to oppose such unions. But for many people — especially among the nation’s younger generation — same-sex marriages have become an accepted fact of life.

It is hard to know exactly how many same-sex couples married in the wake of the court ruling. States like Nebraska do not keep statistics for gay or straight marriages.

In Douglas County, workers in the County Clerk’s Office kept track of the number of same-sex unions for about the first six months. After that, they stopped.marriage equality

“It’s kind of amazing that, once it happened, it’s really just like any other couple,” said County Clerk Dan Esch. No one in his office even bats an eye these days.

However, Esch and his staff did go back and come up with a tally in anticipation of today’s anniversary. Over the past year, through June 13, the county had issued 173 same-sex marriage licenses — just a fraction of the nearly 4,000 marriage licenses issued overall in Douglas County during that time period.

Nationwide it is estimated there have been 123,000 same-sex marriages since the ruling, according to a Gallup survey.

Last year’s court decision hasn’t ended the nation’s culture wars, of course. But today’s battles are more about what’s happening in bathrooms and bakeries than in bedrooms and courthouses.

Laws have been introduced over the past year that would, among other things, compel transgender people to use the bathroom that conforms with their gender at birth or protect bakers from having to make a cake for a same-sex union.

“The fight to preserve religious liberty is the first critical battle of the post-Obergefell era,” according to a report filed this past week by the Family Leader, an Iowa organization that opposes same-sex marriage.

The gay community sees the baker and bathroom debates as “manufactured” fights so that anti-gay groups can remain relevant, now that the high court has settled the marriage debate. “It’s the last gasp of the dying beast. They’re grabbing for things,” said Donna Red Wing, executive director of One Iowa, an LGBT rights advocacy organization in Iowa.

As with same-sex marriage statistics, it is hard to know exactly how many children have been adopted by same-sex couples since the ruling. Adoptions are done by individual courts, which do not keep track.

However, several lawyers in Nebraska said they have worked with same-sex couples eager to adopt their son or daughter in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

“I’ve personally worked on eight to 10 step-parent adoptions, where the same-sex spouse has been able to adopt children who for all intents and purposes was that person’s child,” said Susan Sapp, a Lincoln attorney. “They were very relieved. Whether you agree or disagree with the marriage decision, there were existing families where children didn’t have legal stability.”

In states such as Nebraska, these families that were created with the help of sperm donors, single-parent adoption or other procreation routes were in legal limbo. The state did not allow non-married couples to adopt children. Given the state’s ban on same-sex marriages, that policy was essentially a ban on gay adoptions as well.

That meant that children of these unions did not have all the same protections afforded to other children. In the event of a parent’s death, the child was not legally viewed as an heir to the non-legal parent. And the non-legal parent had no inherent right to the child. In the event of a separation, one parent could deny — or attempt to deny — visitation to the other. Or one of the two parents could walk away without being responsible for child support.

There were few legal guarantees afforded to such families.

June 26, 2016

By Robynn Tysver / World-Herald staff writer – Omaha.com

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in Family Stories / Legal / Parenting / Recently Added  by Anthony Brown 1 comments