Columbus Dispatch: Gay families struggle to safeguard adopted kids

adopted children play in the backyard of their home in Worthington.

?The caseworkers who conducted the pre-adoption home studies treated Ray and Matt Lees as a couple.

Results of background checks and financial reviews and observations about their relationship and the condition of their large suburban home added up to a pleasing portrait.

?Together, you are a great family,? Matt said, paraphrasing a caseworker?s summary. ?But now, from a legal perspective, we are going to remove one of you from the equation.?

Because same-sex couples cannot marry, they cannot jointly adopt in Ohio and several other states that prohibit second-parent adoption. That should remind Americans that the nation?s long-running debate about gay marriage is a child-welfare issue, too, advocates for same-sex couples say.

It?s also an issue that is being pushed to the forefront by growing numbers of those couples who are turning to, and often being embraced by, agencies seeking permanent homes for tens of thousands of foster children.

According to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, adoptive parenting is on the rise among same-sex couples in the U.S. About 19 percent of same-sex couples who are raising kids reported having at least one adopted child in 2009, nearly double the 10 percent who reported adopting in 2000, the institute said.

?The child-welfare system has gotten it. They know they need all kinds of families,? Matt said. ?Now, it?s about the laws catching up with reality.?

When only one half of a couple has legal standing as parent, children are vulnerable to snags with custody, support, medical care, school records and inheritance, among other things.

?It is a disservice to these children that their parents don?t have those legal protections,? said Ellen Kahn, the director of the Family Project at the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based resource group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender families. ?What if the mom with legal standing gets diagnosed with stage-four cancer? How can you not give legal recognition to the other parent??

Matt, 40, and Ray, 43, have done their best to piece together the legal framework that their eight children need. But to manage it, they split the kids. Ray is the legal parent of the first three children adopted ? Jenny, 12; Aaron, 8; and Kalis, 3. Matt is legal parent to five siblings the couple hadn?t planned to adopt but did, rather than see them separated in foster care and sent to scattered homes. They are Keuwan, 7; Kanyae, 6; Keyona, 4; Kalashia, 2; and Josiah, 1.

?We?re sort of spreading the risk around,? Ray said. ?This way, if I passed away, my kids would get my Social Security and that would help Matt. And vice versa. It?s crazy, but that?s how it is because we can?t inherit from each other.?

The Worthington residents, who both work at Nationwide, have been together 16 years and share a name. But they must maintain separate family-health-insurance plans and meet two different deductibles. And they have spent thousands in attorney fees to craft the special custody and power-of-attorney documents that allow them to care for each other?s children in case of emergency or absence.

?We have to carry legal documentation with us at all times,? Ray said.

Rita Soronen, the president and CEO of the Columbus-based Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, said most adoption workers want to find the best families for kids, whether that?s a same-sex couple, single parent or husband and wife.

The foundation brought Kahn to Columbus to speak during its Wendy?s Wonderful Kids Summit this month, and Matt and Ray served on a parent panel.

When Kahn asked a roomful of child-welfare and adoption caseworkers whether any had enough families for all the waiting children, no hands went up. She said GLBT families often are more willing to adopt from foster care and to take older children or those with special needs. ?We know a lot about the concept of family by choice,? Kahn said. ?It?s not always your family of origin who?s standing by you.?

Ray said he occasionally hears comments from people who say he and Matt shouldn?t be parents.

?Unless you?re taking in a child, don?t talk to me,? he said. ?More than 28,000 kids age out of foster care every year with no home. Get back to us when you step up.?

The couple opened their home to two children from Haiti and six from county foster-care systems in Ohio. They bought a 12-passenger van, added four rooms to their home and hired a part-time nanny.

?We didn?t envision all this,? Matt said, smiling.

Being able to marry wouldn?t make them any less tired. But, as parents, it might help them rest more easily.

rprice@dispatch.com

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