A Thanksgiving Family

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday weekend.   This is just a quick post between errands and eating. 

Yesterday my local paper (the Seattle Times) featured this story as a part of their holiday fundraising series.   It seems to me it is a tribute to the resilience of children and the capacity of people to love and care for children.   Sharon Cormier is an admirable parent–to the child she is biologically related to, to the children she has chosen to embrace through adoption, and to the children she raised and is raising as a foster parent.   Her’s is in many ways an extraordinary family and reminder to us, I think, that families come in all sorts of shapes and forms.     Somehow the law has to be flexible enough to recognize and support that diversity.

Foster Parents to Adoptive Parents

I know I’ve got an ongoing thread to work on and that the NYT magazine has a big story on DNA tests and fatherhood coming out tomorrow, but I feel compelled to take a couple of little detours here.   First, here’s a story from today’s Seattle Times.   It celebrates the transition of 175 foster kids in Washington to adoptive kids. 

It’s just worth stopping to note why this is so important.   Foster parents are great, but they are not full legal parents.  As the article makes clear, they do not have full and permanent legal rights.  Adoptive parents do.   Thus, in order to truly secure a legal relationship to a child, a person must move from foster parent to adoptive parent.   And for the kids who are the subject of this article, that’s what happened yesterday.

News in Brief: South Carolina, Standing, and Lesbian Foster Parents

There’s a recent South Carolina case that is worth some discussion I think.   Nancy Polikoff has a discussion of it on her most-excellent blog.  She makes many good points, so do go and have a look. 

In January, 2007 a child was born with cocaine in his system.   The child was immediately placed in protective custody.   The state placed him in foster care with a Michael and Lisa P, a married heterosexual couple.  A year later, the state asked if the P’s wished to adopt the child.   They said no. 

In February, 2008 the child was placed with Erin S.   Like the Ps, she had been approved by the state as a pre-adoptive foster parent.  Erin S. is a single 43-year-old lesbian.

When the Ps found out where the child had been placed they were apparently quite unhappy.

Florida Lesbian/Gay Adoption Ban Argued

Yesterday an appellate court in Florida heard arguments in a case challenging the state’s ban on lesbian/gay adoption.   I wrote about the case some time ago when it was decided by the trial court.  

Frank Martin Gill has been a foster parent to two boys for over five years.   In 2006 he sought to adopt the boys.  Florida, however, has the most sweeping prohibition of lesbian/gay adoption of any state in the US.   (This is the legacy of Anita Bryant.)  Lesbians and gay men, whether single or in pairs, cannot are barred from adoption in Florida.  

The trial judge in Gill’s case found that this bar was irrational and struck it down.   The state appealed the ruling and that’s what was argued yesterday.

Updated: West Virginia Case in NYT Magazine

In early June I wrote about a West Virginia case involving a lesbian couple (Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess) and questions of foster care/adoption.   The case is featured in today’s NYT magazine.    The story includes a good deal of background information on the case and is surely worth a read.

[I posted that short intro yesterday because it is all I had time to post yesterday.  I wanted to add a couple of thoughts today.]  

This story and the extensive opinion in the Louisiana case from the day before are forceful reminders of the overwhelming complexity of real-life families.   As I think back to the summaries of facts I’ve done for so many cases and to the cases I drew the summaries from, I can see how much of that complexity gets glossed over most of the time.  

West Virginia Lesbian Moms Can Keep Foster Child

Here’s a follow-up on a West Virginia case that I discussed some time ago.   (I’ll run through the facts here quickly, but you can go back and read the earlier discussion, too.  There are some good links to contemporary news coverage there.)  The case was decided by the West Virginia Supreme Court on Friday.    You can read the actual opinion here. 

On December 8, 2007,  a child (here called BCG) was born to a drug-addicted mother.  The state took custody of the child and, on December 24, placed her in the home of Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess.    Kutil and Hess, a lesbian couple, had been approved for both foster care and adoption. 

BCG still lives with Hess and Kutil.  In November 2008, however,  a lower court ordered the child removed from the home.   

The Varieties of Motherhood

The post about the women in West Virginia makes me think about the varieties of motherhood.    The law draws all sorts of fine distinctions.    Some of the time they match up with reality and some of the time they don’t.  And in our more common conversations we also draw fine distinctions.

So the women in the West Virginia case are, legally speaking, foster mothers.   They are prevented by operation of law from becoming adoptive mothers, because only married couples can adopt and they cannot marry.    Some people also probably would call them co-mothers (or co-parents) and, of course, lesbian parents.    Some of these categories are not legal ones, they’re just terms we use to identify ourselves and the groups we relate to.   But other categories have legal meaning.

Crucially, adoptive parents are legal parents.  Foster parents are not full legal parents.   

West Virginia Lesbian Foster Moms in Court

Here’s a link to an article about a case now pending before the West Virginia Supreme Court.    There’s some television footage of the argument here along with news coverage.

As with a number of states I’ve discussed, West Virginia bars adoption by unmarried couples.    That effectively bars lesbian and gay couples from adopting, because West Virginia won’t allow lesbian and gay couples to get married.   (Indeed, as I’ve said before, I strongly suspect the desire to exclude lesbian and gay couples from adoption without having to enact an explicitly  anti-lesbian/anti-gay adoption policy is one reason for the sudden interest in “married couples only” adoption laws.)

What’s unusual is that while West Virginia does bar unmarried couples from adopting, it does not bar unmarred couples from becoming foster parents.    And so begins the story.

BGC was born to a drug addicted mother in December 2007.  On December 25, 2007 the state placed her with Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess, a lesbian couple who had been approved as foster parents.    Theirs is the only home BGC has ever known.

At some point, however, the state apparently decided that BGC was not going to be reunited with the woman who gave birth to her.   It follows that would be better off placed for adoption than remaining in foster care.   (I’m reading between the lines here, as the news coverage doesn’t fill in all the details.   But assuming for the moment that it was correct to say that the child would not be reunited the original mother’s abilities, it might well make sense to ensure the child is adopted rather than remaining in foster care.)  

Kentucky Ban on Unmarried Couple Adoption Done for Now

A few days back I noted a bill pending in Kentucky that would have barred unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children.   I’ve been following a cluster of these bills this year.  (That link will take you to other links that will allow you to fill out the story.)

Now this piece of news from Kentucky–the bill I discussed earlier has died, at least for the session.   Something to watch for next year, I suppose, but I’ll cross it off my list for now.

Yet More on Anti-Same-Sex parenting–Now Ohio

I’d like to officially designate this as a trend, and not a good one.   I’ve been following the development of legislation that bars unmarried couples from adoption/fostering.   The last post was from Monday and that will like you back to other posts.  So far I’ve discussed Arkansas (which enacted a law to this effect via popular referendum in November) as well as Kentucky and Tennessee, both of which are currently considering legislation.

None of these statutes explicitly bar lesbians and gay couples from adopting or fostering.    However, since lesbian and gay couples cannot marry in any of these states, barring unmarried couples from adoption/fostering effectively bars lesbian and gay couples from fostering.   These laws also bar unmarried different sex couples from adopting/fostering and they leave single women and men, be they lesbians, gay men, or straight people, free to adopt.  Again, go look at my earlier discussion.