The Importance of Friendly State Laws
By Peter Leahy
Two years after meeting him at a matching picnic, I adopted my son, Tupac, in May of 2002. My partner of five years was there but was not a part of the legal proceeding. Even with the enlightened laws in California and working with a friendly adoption agency, he felt strongly that it would be best to not rock the boat when we started the adoption process by making it a joint adoption.
Between the time when we started and finished the process, the state law in California had changed. Second-parent adoptions were overturned and luckily a remedy was passed to allow children to be covered under the stepparent process if the parents are currently registered domestic partners with the state. In June, when I received a job offer out of state, I decided not to take it largely in part because the state lacked both a statewide anti-discrimination law and provisions to allow my partner to adopt our son.
The patchwork of state laws and the fact that some states have rejected the legitimacy of other state laws definitely has played into our consideration of where to live, work and travel as a family. We hope to complete the process of step parent adoption as soon as possible and we are glad we have that option now - but with a strike of the pen or driving across state lines while on a short trip - our rights to be a family could change. That is anti-family and a very scary prospect.
Sept. 16, 2002