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Looking Before We Leap
We're close to being live on Project Baby, The Sequel. Our letter is in the final proofing stage, and I'm pretty sure by the end of this week we'll be ready to go for the marketing stage. I find myself once again looking at the landscape of America, and thinking...
- Where will the baby winds blow this time? In what part of the country will our little Finster be born?
- Will we be able to adopt this baby? The culture wars are heating up again and the Republican candidates are ramping up the anti gay marriage and adoption rhetoric. Rick Santorum hates gay people so much wears sweater vests in public. It burns our eyes!
Point 2 requires extra consideration. We live in Arizona, where the Tea Party and the Mormon Church have collided in the perfect storm of buffoonery, mean spirits, and sanctimonious bull shit. Joint gay adoption is about as realistic here as Gov. Jan Brewer completing a grammatically correct full sentence. Not going to happen. With Sabrina's adoption, since she was born in California, we were able to finalize there and adopt jointly. (California is full of everything Arizona hates, like college professors and Europeans.) But we may not be so lucky this time around. We've decided that legally, we have to be equal to our two children. So we've decided to rule out any state that will not allow us to adopt jointly. That narrows the list to about ten states and the District of Columbia. It's pretty sad we have to cut our own home state off the list. We understand that may extend our wait for a child by a considerable amount, but we're not willing to have two children with different legal status. We'll see in the end how long the waiting game takes. This is just another example of why adoption and marriage law should be standard across the country. Hopefully, that day will come soon.
Also, Rick Santorum.
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8 comments:
Could Santorum be any more of a close-minded loser? Everything out of that man's mouth angers me. I'm sorry this will be a tough road for you. . . and I'm sorry your state of AZ sucks so bad. My state of MN is usually pretty cool, but somehow banning gay marriage will be on the next ballot. I don't think it will pass, but it's still infuriating.
Wow...only TEN states??? How sad. That's much worse than I thought.
10 states bummed me out too. Gosh, just when there are times when I think things are moving forward. Hang in there guys. Believe that baby out there. HUG.
"We live in Arizona, where the Tea Party and the Mormon Church have collided in the perfect storm of buffoonery, mean spirits, and sanctimonious bull shit." Sad, funny and true! Wishing you so much luck!!
"California is full of everything Arizona hates, like college professors and Europeans". Ahhh, Bobby, this is another favorite line that you've written. That being enjoyed, it bums me out SO much that waiting parents have to worry about the adoption-friendly states for same-sex families. You are realistic, though, and that's where we each have to go in adoption journey land.
Hi Bobby, Gregg and Sabrina!
Glad to hear that you and Gregg are ready for #2!
So, let me get this "straight". Since Sabrina was born in California and you finalized her adoption also in California, Arizona legally recognizes both you and Gregg as Sabrina's legal parents?
It was my understanding that in Arizona, since we don't have 2nd parent adoption, only 1 parent would be the legal parent and the other parent would have to submit guardianship forms every 6 months or so.
That's one of the reasons why we've been holding back from actively becoming parents. Because since we believe that it's in the child's best interest to have BOTH of us be its legal parents, that we could wait to move to California before we became parents.
And that once we lived in California, then both of us would become the legal parents and be able to do a 2nd parent adoption.
Cheers!
Louie and Tim
Cave Creek, AZ
Sorry for the multiple comments. The "captcha" kept telling me I had typed in the wrong two words, but they were right after all! DOH!
Tim and Louie
Once an adoption is done, no state can overturn or ammend it. Our daughter was born in California, which does recognize both of us as parents. California also allows you to return and finalize in a California court. Since that is what we did, we're both listed on the birth certificate and are both legal parents. Arizona has to recognize that. For our second adoption, we decided we want to have the same legal relationship with that child as we do with Sabrina. Therefore, we've limited our choices to the ten states that act like California. We realize it may lengthen our wait, and after some time we may change our minds, but for now we're sticking with that. The ten Happy Homo states, as we call them, are:
States allowing adoption as a gay couple AND allows finalization by non-residents (baby must be born there)
California, Connecticuit, DC, Illinois, Indiana (child must be at least bi-racial), Massachusettes, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington.
You need to keep up to date as this list can be in flux. Some states may allow gay couples to adopt but does not offer finalization to non-residents; in this case you're stuck with what your home state allows as you will finalize there.
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