New York Couple Defend Their Adopted Son in Ohio

Gay City News, May 2, 2014 by  Paul Schindler

It was only in the immediate aftermath of finalizing the adoption of their infant son, Cooper, on January 17 of this year that Joseph Vitale and Robert Talmas became aware that a significant — and unwelcome — legal hurdle lay ahead.

Nine months earlier, the two men, who live in Manhattan and married in September 2011, on the 15th anniversary of becoming a couple, spent the legally required 72 hours in Ohio so they could adopt Cooper, at the time he was born, from the birth mother with whom an adoption agency had made them a match.

The woman originally said she did not want to meet the adoptive parents, but when Vitale and Talmas arrived in Cincinnati for Cooper’s birth, they learned she had changed her mind. They were told to meet Cooper’s birth mother at a local Catholic hospital.

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in Adoption / In the News / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

New Jersey Officials Make Deal On Adoption Records

philadelphia.cbslocal.com – April 28, 2014

TRENTON, N.J. (CBS/AP) — Gov. Chris Christie and lawmakers have struck a deal to allow people adopted in New Jersey access to their birth records, but the compromise puts the opening of records on hold for nearly three years to give birth parents time to have their names removed from birth certificates.

The deal is expected to become law, with Democratic leaders in both chambers of the Democrat-controlled Legislature hailing it. It would cap a 34-year push by a group of advocates for adoptees and their biological parents to open the records in New Jersey for the first time since they were sealed in 1940.

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Surrogacy Shouldn’t Block Adoption, Court Determines

New York Law Journal – April 10, 2014

A Queens man may legally adopt his husband’s biological twins even though they were born to a woman under a surrogacy agreement that is illegal in New York state, a Family Court judge determined.

Judge Barbara Salinitro (See Profile) ruled that the best interests of the twins is the most important consideration in weighing the adoption petition of a man identified in court papers as “J.H.-W.,” not that the surrogacy agreement that reulted in their birth is “void and unenforceable” under New York law.

A home study provided to the court showed that the children are “thriving” in the care of J.H.-W. and his same-sex spouse, “M.H.-W.,” the judge said.

“The court is not being asked to enforce the surrogacy contract that forms the basis for the adoption, nor does the relief sought include claims relating to the surrogacy agreement itself,” Salinitro wrote in Matter of J.J., A-19-20/14. “Rather, the proposed adoptive parent…wants desperately to have equivalent legal status as the birth parent, which is what the couple had always envisioned as they proceeded on their bumpy road towards starting a family together, and is prepared to assume the rights and responsibilities that accompany legal parentage.”

To that end, the judge continued, the surrogacy agreement with the woman who bore the children in Mumbai, India, in 2013 is of “no consequence” to the adoption proceeding in Queens.

“The court finds where a surrogacy contract exists and an adoption has been filed to establish legal parentage, such surrogacy contract does not foreclose an adoption from proceeding,” Salinitro wrote.

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in Adoption / International / Legal / Second Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Utah Attorney General Makes Gay Adoption Harder

HuffPost Gay Voices

It is more difficult for newly married same-sex couples in Utah to adopt, according to lawyers handling such cases, after the attorney general on Monday began urging judges to reject adoption applications from same-sex couples.

“It feels terrible,” said Kathy Harbin, who married her partner of nine years in Salt Lake City last December, a few days after a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. “The state acts like, if it puts all of these things in place that stop us, there won’t be any gay parents. I don’t think they know that there are thousands of us who already have children and all they’re doing is making it harder for us to give them all the things that parents want to give their kids.”

Harbin and Michelle Call wedded with the hope that Harbin could adopt the two young boys the couple is raising together. But less than two weeks later, the Supreme Court agreed to the state’s request to stop same-sex marriages until an appeals court hears the case in April. In the meantime, nearly 1,400 couples who wed in those weeks are stuck in legal limbo — uncertain whether the state will eventually recognize their unions.

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Idaho’s top court grants adoptive rights to spouse in gay marriage

By Laura Zuckerman – Reuters.com, February 11, 2104

Idaho’s top court on Monday ruled that state law allows a woman to adopt the children of her same-sex spouse, in a precedent-setting victory for gay couples in a socially conservative U.S. state that has banned the unions.

The ruling stems from an adoption petition filed last year by an Idaho woman shortly after her marriage in California to her same-sex partner, the parent of boys ages 12 and 15, legal records showed.

The woman, unidentified in court documents on confidentiality grounds related to adoption, sought to share parental rights with her long-term partner. She appealed a magistrate judge’s rejection of her petition.

The Idaho Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision reversing the lower court’s ruling, said a person’s gender or sexual orientation was not part of the legal criteria that allowed a minor to be adopted by an in-state adult resident.

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Vancouver Baby First in Province to Have Three Legal Parents

February 11, 2014 – Mombian.com

A baby born in Vancouver, British Columbia, is the first to have three legal parents on her birth certificate under the province’s new law. The girl was born to a lesbian couple and their male friend and sperm donor, reports CBC News. Under the new law, which passed in 2011 and came into effect last year, donors may be listed as parents as long as the parents agree in writing before conception. The family’s lawyer, barbara findlay (who doesn’t capitalize her name), told CBC News, “In the old days, we looked at biology and genetic connections. And that’s no longer true. We now look at the intention of the parties who are contributing to the creation of the child, and intend to raise the child.” That’s an important point. As we open up the possibility of allowing for more than two parents (California passed a similar law last October), we must make sure we only do so when all of the parents agree beforehand. Otherwise, we end up in situations with a donor who wants parental rights that a couple does not want to give, or a couple that wants financial or time commitments that a donor does not want to make.

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in Adoption / In the News / International / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

In Adoption, Does Race Matter?

New York Times, February 3, 2014

The return of the biracial Cheerios family, and the image of Mitt Romney’s black grandchild, have re-ignited the public conversation about race and adoption. It might seem like an outdated argument, like whether it is “conventional” to gag about interracial couples or whether birth control is just for women with out-of-control libidos. But both sides of the issue have passionate defenders.

Does transracial adoption harm children or communities? Is it ideal for children to be raised by parents who look like them?

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N.Y. Judge Alarms Gay Parents by Finding Marriage Law Negates Need for Adoption

New York Times, January 29, 2013

by James C. McKinley, Jr.

When Amalia C. and Melissa M. decided to start a family, they went through the well-trodden steps most same-sex couples take in New York City.

They married in 2011 and made sure both of their names were on their son’s birth certificate two years later, taking advantage of a New York State law that a child born to a married couple is presumed to be both of theirs, even if conceived through artificial insemination.

And months before Melissa gave birth to their son, Amalia started the adoption process, submitting to a criminal-background check, assembling years of financial documents and hiring a social worker to prepare a report about their household.

“Everyone we had spoken to,” said Amalia, 35, an engineer, “said the process was pretty clean-cut.”

But then a Brooklyn Surrogate’s Court judge, Margarita López Torres, ruled on Jan. 6 that because New York State had enacted same-sex marriage in 2011 and allowed both women to be listed on the boy’s birth certificate, Amalia was already the child’s parent and could not adopt him.

The ruling sent tremors through the ranks of gay couples and has exposed one of the new legal complexities facing same-sex couples with children.

The fear among same-sex couples is that without adoption papers, their parental rights might be questioned if they travel to other states or abroad. They also worry that the nonbiological parent will lose the rights if the family moves to a different state or the couple divorces.

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in Adoption / In the News / International / Legal / Parenting / Second Parent Adoption  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Suit: Utah adoption laws permit ‘legalized fraud and kidnapping’

By Brooke Adams | The Salt Lake Tribune

Jan 22 2014 –

Twelve biological fathers whose children were placed for adoption in Utah without their knowledge or consent have filed a federal lawsuit against the state, alleging Utah laws permit “legalized fraud and kidnapping.”

The fathers, represented by West Jordan attorney Wes Hutchins, allege that despite knowing about the “gross adoption infirmities” of Utah’s laws, two former attorneys general “did nothing for more than a decade to correct the fraud and deception” that led to their children being placed with adoptive families in Utah.

What happened to their sons and daughters was essentially “kidnapping and highly unethical and disruptive placement into adoptive homes without the knowledge or consent of their biological fathers,” the lawsuit states.

Utah’s laws have created a “confusing labyrinth of virtually incomprehensible legal mandates and nearly impossible deadlines” that amount to unconstitutional violations of the rights of unwed fathers, it states.

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and a finding that the Utah Adoption Act is unconstitutional.

All of the fathers in the lawsuit have fought, with mixed results, to stop adoptions of their children. The men are: Robert B. Manzanares; Christopher D. Carlton; Jake M. Strickland; Jacob D. Brooks; Michael D. Hunter; Frank L. Martin; Samuel G. Dye; Bobby L. Nevares; William E. Bolden; John M. Wyatt III; Cody M. O’Dea; and Scottie Wallace.

Martin successfully fought adoption of his daughter, born in 2012, and now has custody of her. Dye also recently succeeded in regaining custody of his son, who was about 18 months old when his mother brought him to Utah and placed him for adoption.

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in Adoption / In the News / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Robert Oscar Lopez: Married Gay Couples Collaborate With Human Traffickers To Have families

OnTopMagazine.com, 11/27/2013

Anti-gay marriage activist Robert Oscar Lopez on Tuesday claimed that allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry leads to human trafficking.

Lopez, who is celebrated among social conservatives due to the fact that he was raised briefly in a same-sex household and claims he was damaged by the experience, appeared on Sandy Rios in The Morning to criticize passage of a marriage law in Hawaii.

“Look [at] what they did in Hawaii, that’s a state where over sixty percent of the population is Asian-American; they’re the people who came from South Korea, from Japan, from the Philippines, countries that have a very, very controversial history with adoption,” Lopez said, according to an account from Right Wing Watch. “And the predominantly white Human Rights Campaign went to Hawaii and ripped apart that state, you heard the testimony, they took a state and they just ripped at their heart.”

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in Adoption / In the News / International / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments