Human Rights in Our Own Backyard by Armaline William T.; Glasberg Davita Silfen; Purkayastha Bandana

Author:Armaline, William T.; Glasberg, Davita Silfen; Purkayastha, Bandana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.

Adoption Rights

The limitations placed on same-sex couples’ right to marry not only leaves the couples without legal protections, but also affects the children that they bring into their relationships or those they conceive together. Adoption for same-sex couples can vary a great deal in the United States because adoption laws are regulated entirely by the state where one resides. While most U.S. states allow gays or lesbians to adopt children as individuals, several have explicitly prohibited same-sex couples from jointly adopting children. These states include Michigan, Utah, Arkansas, and Florida2 (Polikoff 2000). In 2008, Arkansas passed a bill banning same-sex couples from becoming foster parents (Taneff 2009). In recent years, several states including Ohio, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia have all introduced a ban on adoption by gay individuals (Bagby 2006). While these bans have been predominantly unsuccessful, they do signal the deep division within states regarding legitimating gay and lesbian families. Interestingly with the exception of Arkansas, most states that do not allow gay and lesbian couples to adopt children will allow them to foster these children. This is contradictory because states like Florida, Michigan, Arkansas, and Utah argue that it isn’t in the best interest of the child to be raised by same-sex couples, yet allow these children to live with gay and lesbian foster parents indefinitely when a suitable, sexually conforming couple is not found.

Those same-sex couples that already have biological children have different options in legitimating (in the eyes of the law) their families. These families need a mechanism to recognize the nonbiological parent who participates in the raising of the child without legal protection. One way to create these protections is through second-parent adoptions. Second-parent adoption laws allow an individual to adopt his or her partner’s biological child so that both parents are legally recognized (Gibson 1999). Second-parent adoptions are permitted in California, District of Columbia, Indiana, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey (Palmer 2003). Nebraska, Ohio, and Colorado do not allow second-parent adoptions. Without the protection of second-parent adoptions, those couples that cannot legally marry do not have the protections for their children in the event of a separation or death. Therefore, by not extending legal protections to gay and lesbian couples, the state is also denying these couples’ children their human rights because of their parents’ relationship.

Adoption law in the United States highlights one of the biggest problems with the partial citizenship of same-sex couples. By extension, other members of their families are adversely affected by their lack of protection.

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