New Orleans Congressman Juan LaFonta is proposing to expand Louisiana adoption laws with language to recognize as parents both persons in a gay couple. But he's taking a bit of a circuitous route to get the law passed.
Rather than going directly after the provision of Louisiana law that restricts adoption to married couples or single individuals but not unmarried couples, his bill would expand the list of eligible persons to petition for "intrafamily" adoptions, those that involve a second adult becoming a legal parent to a child who already has a legal parent in the same family or household.
Current law already allows a step-parent, step-grandparent, great-grandparent, grandparent, aunt, great aunt, uncle, great uncle, sibling, or first, second or third cousin, neighborhood dog-walker--okay, I kid on that last one--to adopt a child under certain circumstances. LaFonta hopes to add the term second parent to the list, provided "the petitioner is the sole legal parent and agrees to the adoption of the child by a second parent."
Like all of Louisiana adoption laws, LaFonta's bill does not mention sexual orientation. Gay couples in Louisiana are already allowed to adopt, but those gay couples--or even an unmarried heterosexual couple--have to choose just one of the pair to become the legal parent, with the second adult having no legal relationship with the child.
That's what LaFonta seeks to change. He says he does not ant the debate to be solely about gay adoption, but instead about expanding opportunities for more children to have a chance at a stable, two-parent home, but believes, "[t]here are too many children who need homes. We've got to stop this narrow regulating of what is a family and what's not."
Take the step Louisiana.
I just saw Rosie O'Donnell on the Tyra show. She tried to adopt two abused kids in Florida that had been in 30 different foster care homes. She was turned down because she was gay. Something needs to change and quick.
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