The adoption option: Rosie O'Donnell and tens of thousands of other gay people have chosen to adopt children--but how many roadblocks stand in the way of others who want to follow their lead? (Cover Story).

"Hold on a second, I need to just send my kid away here," says Sean Kershaw, who has a toddler demanding his attention. If an impatient 2-year-old could personify America's debate over adoption by gays and lesbians, it would be Aidan. The odd set of circumstances by which Aidan came to his parents, two gay men, underscores the disparate attitudes that exist toward gay parenting, not to mention the dramatic lengths some gay men and lesbians have to go to in order to become adoptive parents.

Two years ago, Kershaw and his partner, Tim Hawkins, who live in St. Paul, Minn., were in the final stages of adopting what would have been their first child, a 4-year-old, through the local foster care system. At the last possible moment in the legal process, that boy's foster parents balked at the prospect of allowing gay men to raise their child and adopted the boy themselves. But as fate would have it, across town and within weeks, a birth couple decided they did want their newborn to have two adoptive dads and furthermore pegged Kershaw and Hawkins as the dads of their choice.

The newborn was Aidan--to whom, of course, none of this presently matters. What does matter is Kershaw's immediate attention, which Aidan must have, interviews regarding the state of gay and lesbian adoption be damned. "Tim!" Kershaw pleads, asking his partner for relief.

It's far too early to know what long-lasting effect Rosie O'Donnell's coming out as the most visible gay parent in the country will have on the issue of gay adoption. But what is certain is that O'Donnell has brought the issue to living rooms and kitchen tables across the country and in the process has shone a spotlight on the sometimes hotly debated topic. But the moral give-and-take over gay adoption overlies the much more convoluted questions of what exactly "gay adoption" is and exactly how one goes about becoming a gay or lesbian adoptive parent.

The confusion is understandable, as little is clear-cut about gay and lesbian adoption in America today. There are as many ways to adopt as reasons for wanting to do so. And each avenue is, in turn, governed by a messy patchwork of inconsistent and ever-changing state and local laws. What works in Burlington, Vt., may not fly in Birmingham, Ala. And what could once be done in China is now virtually forbidden there. While only Florida has an outright ban on adoption by anyone gay, Utah and Mississippi prohibit adoption by gay couples but do not expressly bar gay individuals from adopting, although neither state's law has been tested in court--and in most states gay adoption's legality is being decided in the courts. Indeed, the wide variance in acceptance and legality makes it virtually impossible to estimate just how many gay or lesbian adoptive parents there are in the United States today.

An ABC News poll showed in March that a plurality of Americans--47% of those surveyed--actually favor laws that allow gay men and lesbians to adopt children, as opposed to 42% who did not. That approval appears to be up markedly from 1998, when respondents to a Time/CNN poll opposed gay and lesbian adoption by a margin of 57% to 35%.

Most advocates of gay adoption agree that as O'Donnell continues her campaign, it will only result in better understanding and acceptance. "I don't think it's something where you can measure the impact in weeks," says Deborah Talen, executive director of the Minneapolis-based support group Rainbow Families. "It might be the kind of thing like Rock Hudson, where the event just moved the ball along and gave [the issue of HIV/AIDS] a shove into mainstream acceptability."

But as Kershaw points out, "You don't accidentally become a gay parent. I know that's a cliche, but it's really true." Approval from a plurality of Americans or not, many gay men and lesbians have to go through hundreds of hoops in order to navigate what can only be described as a bewildering system. Once the decision to become a parent has been made, the general modus operandi often becomes "by whatever means necessary."

Take for example the experience of Connecticut couple Penny Bamford and Janine Cataldo. After five difficult years of attempting artificial insemination, the couple turned to the idea of international adoption in 1996. "By the time we came to the adoption process, we really were ready for children. And we wanted it to be as quick and as painless as possible, because we had already been through so much," says Bamford, who is assistant dean of nursing at the College of New Rochelle in New York.

"Being lesbians, domestic adoption is a bit complicated, and [international adoption] just looked like an easier route to the end goal."

But even this was not a straightforward process. The couple's initial focus was on China, until they learned that Chinese officials are now restricting the practice, having realized that a large percentage of the single Americans who were adopting children there were gay or lesbian.

Bamford and Cataldo's attorney then pointed them toward Cambodia, and the rest is family history: They are now the proud parents of two Cambodian-born girls, 4-year-old Ruby, adopted in 1997, and 2-year-old Ava, adopted in 2000. (The U.S. government has since barred residents from adopting Cambodian children, to stop the illegal sale of babies in that country.)

Many gay and lesbian parents make the best of what's available to them, mixing and matching different adoption types to create their families. Deborah Talen and her partner, Polly Talen, have three daughters: 11-year-old Eliza, who was adopted in 1990 and whose birth mother was an acquaintance; 10-year-old Lydia, adopted in 1992; and 7-year-old Grace, adopted in 1995. Both of the younger girls came to the family as a result of international adoptions. "Eliza's African-American, and her siblings are Chinese-American, and we're still a family," Deborah Talen says. "We know we don't have to look alike to be a family."

Other prospective gay or lesbian parents have turned to public foster care programs in order to create a family. Of course, their reception at these programs varies widely, but the demand for suitable parents is virtually universal. For Laura and Marcy Rede of Minneapolis, the decision to adopt 6-year-old Shanika, who has Down's syndrome, from the foster care system came about because of both philosophical and economical reasons. "Practically speaking, international adoption and domestic adoption are so expensive, and the county was willing to do our home study for free," says Laura Rede. "There's an adoption subsidy after the child is placed with you that helps to defray costs. And we don't make a whole lot of money, so it made a lot more sense for us to do that."

Cord Planck, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Family Pride Coalition, points out that the urgent needs of children in public foster care systems form the crux of O'Donnell's message--which was spurred by Florida's refusal to let a gay couple adopt one of their foster children. "[The ban is] not just unfairness to gay people and gay parents and gay people who want to parent, but to these [foster] kids who need homes," she says.

Kershaw thinks O'Donnell makes the perfect spokeswoman for the cause. "Only a comedian could appreciate the tragedy and the comedy of the situation," he says. "You've got tens of thousands of kids in the system taken from absolutely horrible situations with parents who happen to be straight. So it makes as much sense to prohibit straight couples from having kids as it does to ban gay couples from adopting those kids. It'd be hysterical if it weren't so tragic."

Equally important as O'Donnell's work, Talen says, was the February policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The group not only declared that children living in gay or lesbian families deserve to have two legally recognized parents but also threw its full support behind legislation supporting gay adoption. "Having that come at the same time as Rosie was really phenomenal," she says. "The two together is a significant thing indeed."

Even after a couple finds a child to adopt, they often still have to face the mess of how their home state will legally recognize each same-sex parent. Virtually all gay and lesbian adoptions begin as single-parent adoptions in the eyes of the law, and whether a same-sex partner can ever legally become a second parent depends on individual state laws. A few states allow same-sex partners to later file for second-parent or coparent status, giving both parents legal recognition. Many other states are still grappling with the idea and, with no firm stances yet established, are seeing policy being determined in court. In March, for example, a Nebraska court denied the right of a Lincoln woman to adopt the child her partner bore through artificial insemination, even though both have been parents to the child since it was born in 1997.

The urge to become a parent is, of course, separate from sexual orientation. "Not every gay or lesbian person wants to adopt, nor should every gay or lesbian person adopt, but certainly you've got to open up the [adoption] pool," Family Pride's Planck says.

Nevertheless, parents say there are adoption-related experiences that are unique to being gay or lesbian. "In some ways, [adoption] is harder for men, but not necessarily because they are treated differently by the birth mothers or the legal community or the adoption agencies," says Ken Yood, former president of the Los Angeles support group Pop Luck Club. Gay men, he says, must often first conquer their own mental blocks, since they lack a long-standing tradition of seeing themselves as potential parents. "Part of the process of coming to the decision to be a parent is to envision yourself in that way, and tap into that part of yourself," Yood says. "That can be a difficult process."

For women, who have often experienced more societal parental conditioning than men, the struggles are a bit different. "We ran into people doubting that we would be able to raise boys," Laura Rede says. "We had originally set out to adopt our daughter Shanika as well as her three brothers." But the boys' foster mothers stood in the way of their being adopted. "They had the stereotype that all lesbians are lesbians because we hate men, and if we raised boys, we would raise them hating themselves because we would be giving them a negative idea of men."

But there are many other experiences shared by both gay and lesbian parents alike. "Parenting forces you to come out again, and you can't be shy about it," Kershaw says. "If you're uncomfortable coming out and you've got a toddler who's yelling `Daddy' and `Papa' in a grocery store, you're not ready to parent." He adds that the confidence he and his partner exude helps people look past the fact that they're both men and focus instead on whether they're good parents.

Not that good parenting, by gays or straights, comes about without a learning curve. Though 2-week-old Aidan was perfectly healthy when he arrived at Kershaw and Hawkins's home, the couple became alarmed when he refused his formula that first day. Kershaw's mother came over to help, and when her son handed her Aidan's refrigerated bottle, she asked, "`What the hell is this?'" Kershaw remembers. "Seems we forgot the fact that breast milk isn't supposed to be 40 degrees."

Portraits of parenting

For these special family photos, The Advocate brought together gay and lesbian parents of all sorts, with their children, and asked them to talk about how they became a family.

The Janger family

Lane, David, and Javin and Flynn, both 18 months

Dads originally from: California

Became a family: 2000, via surrogacy 

On a recent Friday morning, 10 parents have brought their toddlers to the Pump Station, a Santa Monica, Calif., "maternity center," for music lessons. Nine of the parents are women; the 10th is Lane Janger, who juggles his 18-month-old twins, Javin and Flynn--along with pacifiers, bottles, and a collection of maracas, tambourines, and drums--in a display of agility and tenderness that can't help but attract attention. Is there a woman in the place who isn't wondering, Why can't my husband be like that?

Maybe next week, when Janger returns with his partner, David, they'll have the answer. In the meantime, Janger, 35, is blissfully unconcerned about what anyone thinks of him as a gay parent. "I never saw the gay thing as an obstacle," he says. "I always babysat neighborhood kids when I was growing up. And I was a camp counselor."

In his 20s Janger lived in New York, where he produced three films, I Like It Like That, I think I Do, and Just One Time (which Janger, as writer director, and star, expanded from a popular short in Boys Life 3). But at 32, he was ready to produce something more lasting; with the help of the Los Angeles--based surrogacy agency Growing Generations, he contracted with a surrogate mother who already had few children and welcomed Lane and David into her extended family. Just before the twins' first birthday, Lane and David ("Daddy" and "Papa," respectively) threw a farewell party at their favorite East Village bar, then traded their ground-floor apartment for a roomy house near the University of California, Los Angeles, where Janger's parents and two brothers are neighbors (and regular baby-sitters).

When he isn't heating formula and interviewing nannies, Janger is preparing to get back into writing and directing. In the meantime, he's taken on acting jobs, which is why, a few hours after the Santa Monica music class, he's headed off to an audition. It's a commercial, and they're looking for a young father, Janger explains: "My agent said T-shirt, jeans, and unshaven." Needless to say, he's perfect for fire rob.

The Taher-Ortiz family

Monica, Jenifer, and Sasha, 3

Moms originally from: El Salvador and California

Became a family: 1998, by birth

Burbank, Calif., couple Monica Taher and Jenifer Ortiz, both 29, were pleased that no eyebrows were raised when they enrolled their 3-year-old daughter, Sasha, in preschool. "She's got a great, supportive teacher, who when we took her there didn't say anything about our family," says Ortiz (near left), an electrical engineer. "She's just kind of let it come out as activities come along in the school. The whole staff has been great." Taher, a media manager for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and Ortiz together publish the Latino gay and lesbian monthly Tentaciones, and they say it's been important for Sasha to know other children with lesbian and gay parents. "Now that she's more of an impressionable age and can see her environment and what's around her, she can see, `Oh, so-and-so has two mommies too,' or, `So-and-so has two daddies,' and she can think, Oh, just like me." When asked for comment, Sasha herself would only add, "I just want to go to Chuck E. Cheese." --D.A.

The Edwards-Stout family

Kergan and Mason, 2

Dad originally from: California

Became a family: 2000, by private adoption

Child custody issues after a breakup can be especially thorny for gays and lesbians. Take the case of 2-year-old Mason. Kergan Edwards-Stout, 37, and his partner, Jim, became Mason's dads at his birth--but only Jim became his legal parent. Mason was born in Tennessee, where same-sex second-parent adoption was not possible. Once back home in Santa Ana, Calif., Edwards-Stout began second-parent adoption proceedings--and broke up with Jim just as it was finalized. "Now we're trying to figure out custody and visitation and child support and all of that," says Edwards-Stout, an author and screenwriter. "Initially we'd planned on adopting more [children], and I was going to be a stay-at-home dad, so I had put all my career stuff on the shelf. Since we've split up, I've had to go back to work and try to figure out the best way to provide for Mason. And I'm trying to date, which is a little strange too." --D.A.

The McElroy family

Jeff and Raul, 7

Dads originally from: Ohio and Venezuela

Became a family: 1998, by public adoption

Raul has endured quite a lot for a 7-year-old He was born cocaine-addicted and "really had a tough lime of it," says adoptive dad Jeff McElroy, 47. Raul started to show promise at around age 2 or 3, about the time McElroy and his partner, Enrique, met him. The couple liked the fact that genetically, Raul mirrored them. "His birth mother was a big redheaded Irish girl, and the father was Guatemalan--which was a mix of Enrique and I," says McElroy, who jokingly calls himself "a big redheaded Irish girl." The couple adopted Raul in early 1998, but Enrique, a native of Venezuela, died just over a year later from HIV-related lymphoma. Despite adversity, Raul is flourishing. "He's such a bright, sensitive kid," says McElroy, a Los Angeles lawyer. "He's just so fun to be around. You know, he's in first grade, and he's just learning and discovering. It's just wonderful." --D.A.

The Gonzalez-Williamson family

Allyson, Denise, and Camille and Cameron, due in May

Moms originally from: Virginia and Tennessee

Became a family: 2002, by birth

Lesbian couples have the advantage of being able to get pregnant--and the burden of deriding who will carry the child. For Denise Williamson and Allyson Gonzalez, fate made the choice. "We tried [in vitro fertilization] with me for five or six months, and it just wasn't meant to be," says Williamson, 41. "Then as soon as we tried with Allyson--bam!--smooth as silk." Gonzalez, 40, is carrying twins Camille and Cameron, who are due May 15. The couple, who have been together more than 20 years, are both doctors with established practices in Los Angeles. They've long known that they wanted children, and they hope to have more. "You come to a point in your life when you say, `Well, is this all there is?'" Williamson says. The answer, she adds, is, "No, as a matter of fact, there are other things. Very important things." --D.A.

The Levine-Torres family

Allison, Grace, and Emma, 12 weeks

Moms originally from: California

Became a family: 2002, by birth

"I never thought that I could love anything as much as I love this little girl," says Grace Torres of her daughter, Emma, age 12 weeks. Emma's other mommy agrees. "There was one night where she fell asleep on my chest, and I just started bawling," says Allison Levine, 32. "I love her so much it hurts. Beforehand, not being the biological parent, you can't help but think to yourself, OK, am I the type of person who can open up enough to feel this way? And the minute she cane out, it's like that question didn't even exist." Torres, 34, gave birth to Emma, whose biological father is an anonymous sperm donor. The Los Angeles couple run a gay-parenting resource Web site called The Gayby Boom and are planning another pregnancy when Emma is 18 months old. Torres will carry again. "Allison has no threshold for pain," says Torres--although admittedly, neither does she. "It was an awesome delivery. I had really good drugs, and lots of them. You're not going to love her any more for suffering." --D.A.

The Scott family

Greg, Jake, and Braeden, 11 weeks

Dads originally from: California and New York

Became a family: 2002, by private adoption

"When I came out to my mother, she said she wasn't upset that I was gay, she was upset that she wasn't going to have a grandchild," says Jake Scott, an only child. "I told her, `Well, Mom, you don't have to worry about that.' And she's unbelievably happy about [Braeden]." Indeed, Grandma was so happy that she sent pages and pages of naming options to Jake and his partner, Greg. Ultimately, they chose to name their now--11-week-old son Braeden Alexander Scott. The Los Angeles pair--who recently changed their last names to the middle name they happened to share--knew they wanted to be parents even as they met 4 1/2 years ago. "We actually discussed it kind of randomly on one of our first dates," says Jake, 31, a lawyer. "We both wanted to make sure it was something that was on the table," adds 39-year-old Greg, a real estate agent. "We're both pretty traditional and we love the idea of having a family." --D.A.

The Miya Llanusa family

Steven, Glenn, Alex and Aaron, 11, and Eric, 9

Dads originally from: California

Became a family: 1998, when the twins arrived as foster children

Same-sex parents face an added dimension to the child-naming process: surnaming. Some hyphenate, others create amalgams of their original surnames. Steven Llanusa, a 42-year-old elementary school teacher, and his partner, Glenn Miya, opted to put their names together, giving their adopted boys the new surname of Miya Llanusa. The Claremont, Calif., couple first took in identical twins Aaron and Alex, now 11, as foster children in April 1998. Their full brother Eric, now 9, followed showy. Two and a haft years later, after the biological parents' rights were terminated, Miya and Llanusa adopted all three boys. "They're all doing quite well," says Miya, a 39-year-old pediatrician. "They had medical and scholastic problems when they came, but Alex has won many awards, and Aaron's doing very well." "The twins are on the honor roll," chimes in proud dad Llanusa. Eric has shown amazing improvement as well. "He used to be very angry and did not know how to smile, literally," says Miya. "Now he acts like a little boy." --D.A.

The Booraem-Valencia family

Heidi, Donna-Lisa, and J-J, 20 months

Moms originally from: Maryland and California Became a family: 2000, by birth

In the relatively new world of surrogate births, the matter of which parents' names go on the baby's birth certificate can be prickly. For Heidi Booraem and Donna-Lisa Valencia, who live in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, there was never any doubt. Their 20-month-old daughter, Judy-Jeanne (called J-J), is the product of Booraem's egg, which was fertilized with a friend's sperm and carried by Valencia. "We are legally both on her birth certificate," says Valencia, 40, a producer-writer. "Very few couples have done it, but I refused to go through adoption when it's [Booraem's] genes and I carried her." The women plan to have another child, using the same sperm donor and Valencia's egg, but Booraem won't be returning the carrying favor. "In the delivery room as J-J was being born, my mom was there and Donna-Lisa's mom, and it was like, `OK, Heidi, are you now ready?"' says Booraem, 38, a landscape designer and arborist. "And I said, `[If I give birth,] cryofreeze me for 10 months, for the before and during, and wake me up just after it's over.' If Donna-Lisa wasn't willing to go through the process again, then I would. But I don't need to, so I'm not going there." --D.A.

LEGAL PATCHWORK

With only a few exceptions, state laws provide very little guidance when it comes to adoption by gays and lesbians

Raising children continues to be one of the thorniest issues for gay men and lesbians.

So it's not surprising that gay and lesbian activists hailed the American Academy of Pediatrics' decision earlier this year to support second-parent adoption by same-sex couples. The AAP, widely known as the country's leading authority on children's medical issues, said it would be better for the emotional and psychological well-being of children if both partners in a same-sex couple could legally adopt them, because it provides for continuity should something happen to one parent, and in the event of separation, ensures legal visitation rights.

But the AAP's stance contrasts with the legal realities surrounding gay adoption in the United States, where the law consists of a patchwork of different rulings from state to state. "A lot of what we are trying to do is to educate the public and lawmakers right now about the vast inequalities that are out there," says Lisa Bennett, deputy director of Human Rights Campaign's FamilyNet program. "Frankly, I think a lot of people don't understand how all over the map these protections are."

Today, only Florida expressly bars individual gay men and lesbians from adopting children, but the legal status of second-parent adoption by same-sex partners varies, says Patricia Logue, a Chicago-based senior counsel with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and a family law expert. In about half the states in the nation, there have been rulings in favor of second-parent adoption by same-sex partners either on the local trial level or the more binding state appellate level, Logue says. But the rulings on latter level have come in only six states--California, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Illinois--plus the District of Columbia. In four states--Colorado, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Ohio--there have been appeals-level rulings against second-parent adoption by same-sex couples.

"It is a very critical time, and hopefully we will see more legislatures stepping forward as in California, Connecticut, and Vermont to secure these families," Logue says. "[Because of] the benefits and the safety net that adoption brings, it is a very important thing for children." --Jeremy Quittner

Bernstein also contributes to the New York Times.

Allen is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer. Special thanks to the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center for help with "Portraits of Parenting."