Families with a new twist: same-sex couples have fought for the right to adopt children, just as they are fighting for the right to legally marry.

Joe Flint, 42, and his partner, Steve Mosco, 53, are among many same-sex couples who are becoming more visible in their efforts to establish and maintain families. Some, with children from previous relationships, are waging custody battles. Others are trying in vitro fertilization or surrogates. And, in recent years, same-sex couples have also fought for the right to adopt children, just as they are fighting for the right to legally marry.

Flint and Mosco, who have been together for seven years and had a wedding ceremony in 1999, adopted their 9-month-old daughter, Emma, when she was a newborn. The two men are white. Emma is black.

The couple see their family as unusual--but not problematic, as others might see it. They point to a network of family and friends, as well as a small stack of childrearing books to help them through parenting. "We recognize that there are some things we just won't understand," Mosco said, "but we have plenty of help."

As black children enter the foster care system in greater numbers, the need to find families and homes for them has also increased. In 1994, The Cradle, an Evanston-based adoption center, established the Ardythe and Gale Sayers Center for African American Adoption. Named after the NFL Hall of Famer and his wife, who are adoptive parents, the center works to raise awareness of the need for adoptive homes for black children.

The rising number of such children, and the desire of same-sex couples looking to adopt, are trends that are putting a new twist on nontraditional families.

Mosco and Flint recently talked to The Chicago Reporter about their experiences.

How did Emma's adoption come about?

Joe Flint: A lot of it had to do with our love for each other. We got married in 1999. So, the question was, how do we extend that love?

We chose The Cradle because they do open adoptions, which means that there is an ongoing relationship, or the possibility of one, with the birth mom. We met with Emma's morn. We've written letters and gotten letters. We can't put ourselves in the place of the birth mom; we're just remaining open and hope to continue being in touch with her.

Steve Mosco: We were over a year in the process. We had all these different classes, in things like infant care. I won the diaper-changing contest in my class, by the way.

Flint: The process starts with being educated by The Cradle, to make sure that you're ready to be a parent at all, and to be an adoptive parent. And you're required to be foster parents for the first six months of life with the child.

Mosco: You have to put together a portfolio of who you are, and The Cradle's counselors show a bunch of portfolios to the birth parents. We asked Emma's birth morn why she chose us. She said it was our smiles. She told us, 'I just wanted to make sure my daughter was happy.' We want [Emma] to know her family. We want her to know what a great woman her mom is.

Did you set out to adopt a black child specifically?

Flint: We were looking to adopt and we knew there was a need for parents to adopt African American children. Because there is such a need, the wait [for a child to become available] is less, since we're not spring chickens. Some parents say they are open to a child of any race, but statistically you're more likely to get an African American child, anyway. So we went through the Sayers program.

Were you looking for a newborn?

Mosco: We'd said that we would take a child up to 2 or 3 years old. And we were open to a sibling group; we didn't want to break a family [of children] up.

What kinds of reactions have you gotten?

Mosco: Family and friends have been unbelievably supportive. She now goes to day care at my work, and people at work just love her. And I'd never talked to so many strangers until Emma arrived. African American men, especially, just want to know the whole story.

Flint: Our society is very sexist when it comes to raising children. They see childrearing as a woman's job, and seeing two men in that role is foreign to people. I think that some people support us simply because we're taking on this nontraditional role. But some don't.

Mosco: One time we were in Marshall Field's and we had Emma in an umbrella stroller. She had fallen asleep, and was slumped over, the way kids do. And a woman looked at her and said, 'You need another stroller for her.' Then we both said, in unison, 'She's fine.' I think that she saw these two men with this child and was thinking we're screwing it up.

As white men, how will you deal with the social and cultural challenges of raising a black child?

Mosco: We have a black friend who gave Emma a black doll. And [the friend] told us, 'Her hair is mine! She will not have crazy hair.'

Flint: With us being two white men, and not knowing how to care for an African American child's hair, she offered to be a resource for us. We have friends who are African American, and we want to make sure they are a part of Emma's life. We have all kinds of friends-gay, straight and of different races, so it's important just to let her see the mix.

Mosco: [Flint] gets pretty incensed when people come up to us and say how lucky she is. Underneath that is an assumption of what her life would be like with a black parent, as if her life is going to be better now because she has two white daddies.

Flint: They're implying that, because her birth mother chose to surrender her child, she wouldn't have been a good parent. It could be that, for some people, race plays into that. Some people equate race with economic level or with education, and they might feel that, because Emma would be raised with us, she'd have the things she needs to thrive.

What is your response to those who feel that children should be adopted by parents of the same race?

Mosco: I haven't had a chance to use this line but, if I caught someone staring, I'd ask, 'Do you have any questions?'

Flint: I think if either one of us felt we weren't going to be comfortable raising an African American child, we wouldn't do it. To me, the basis of raising a child is recognizing that there are much more important things than race. Like, 'Do the parents have good values and morals?' There are differences between us and Emma, and she can see it. But there are similarities, too, and we want to show her them to her.

How will you and Emma deal with reactions to the fact that she has same-sex parents?

Flint: On so many fronts, children face ignorance when they leave your home, and sometimes in the home. All you can do is have an open communication line. We want to teach her by modeling well for her how to deal with it. But it's way too early for us to know how we'll do this as she ages.

Joe Flint (left) and Steve Mosco, who adopted their 9-month-old daughter, Emma, want her to understand and accept differences between people.