Letter to the Editor
By Noel Baril
[Regarding your appeal for stories about experiences with gay/lesbian adoption, I thought I would share a note that I wrote to Brian Dickerson of The Detroit Free Press, in which I thank him for his column in support of gay adoption. Here's what I said to Brian:]
Thanks so much for weighing-in on this important issue. Your support and that of Susan Ager [a Detroit Free Press columnist], evidenced by her outstanding recent column on gay adoptions, is much appreciated by the many, many gay parents living in Michigan and elsewhere.
As I told Susan, my partner and I recently finalized my (not our) adoption of our son, Ethan, in Pennsylvania, where we found an agency that was open to working with same-sex couples, although that state [at the time of this writing], too, does not permit same-sex parent adoptions. Frankly, my partner, a lawyer, was more comfortable adopting out-of-state since any challenges to our adoption -- even after finalization -- would be more difficult across state lines, he believed.
The practical, day-to-day implications of these unfair state laws are many and you touched on some in your column. For example, my partner recently traveled by air to New Jersey to visit his mother who is ill. He took Ethan along. However, were he to have been challenged by airport security, a police officer during a routine traffic stop or a physician in an emergency room, he would have no way to document his relationship with Ethan -- legally, he doesn't have one. Instead, we had an attorney develop documents in which I granted him permission to make decisions on my behalf. Fortunately, no such problems arose, but they could have quite easily. In the worst case scenario, the man who is Ethan's primary caregiver -- a stay-at-home dad -- could have Ethan taken away by an official who doubts my partner's legitimacy. (This is a much bigger issue for a man with a child than for a woman with a child -- believe me).
Aside from these "practical" implications, there is a psychological impact. My heart goes out to my partner when he's forced by circumstance to admit that he has no legal right to Ethan. And my heart will go out to Ethan, who is 10 months old, the first time he realizes that the law doesn't consider one of his dads -- the one who has cared for him since birth -- to be a legitimate parent.
I'm hoping that visibility brought about by your column, Susan's column, Rosie O'Donnell's crusade, my recent appearance with Ethan for Channel 7's report on gay adoption, and other such actions, will ultimately result in a change in state laws so that my WHOLE family can be legally recognized. (By the way, my partner didn't appear in the Channel 7 report because he is in the military reserves and, in the context of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," that would have been considered "telling." We'll take up that issue another time, I think.)
Sept. 17, 2002