By Tara Cavanaugh
Jeffrey McLoughlin holds his adopted son Avon while playing with his adopted daughter Anala. Anala and Avon are half siblings. McLoughlin's husband, James McDonald, is a stay-at-home dad. BTL photo: Andrew Potte
With practiced patience, James McDonald manages snack time for a two-year-old who is surprisingly chatty for her age.
"She's everything for her age," he laughs. "She's incredibly smart. We joke she's two going on 20."
The precocious toddler is lucky to have a stay-at-home dad who will no doubt nurture her natural intelligence. She's also lucky to have fathers who temporarily relocated to California just to be able to adopt her and her half brother. The family now lives in Ypsilanti.
Michigan doesn't allow same-sex couples to adopt together, which means that gay and lesbian couples that want to become parents have to carefully survey their options. But no matter how much they plan, Michigan law doesn't even consider children from same-sex parents, and these families can be fractured in an instant.
Everyone knows that parenting can be an uphill battle. But gay and lesbian couples who dare to parent in Michigan are climbing a mountain.
A first and last day of school
The first day of school is about more than clean backpacks and fresh pencils – it's a marker that the child has grown a year older. It's a reminder that kids grow up fast.
On a first day of school in September 2009, Renee Harmon showed up at the home of her three children and former partner Tammy Davis. For ten years, the two raised the family they planned together, but then they broke up. After Harmon moved out, she had an informal custody agreement with Davis and saw the kids regularly.
That morning, Harmon rang the doorbell. She had never missed a first day of school. Her arms were full with coffee and bagels, new kids' clothes and a camera.
But Davis' new partner opened the door told Harmon to go away – that she couldn't see the kids anymore.
Harmon snapped. She had worried about this. No one was going to prevent her from seeing her kids. She broke a window and crawled inside. Davis and her girlfriend tackled Harmon and dragged her out.
Harmon stood in the driveway and waited.
Davis brought out the children when the bus pulled up. They broke away from Davis and ran up to Harmon, crying. "We love you, Nay-Nay!" they yelled.
Harmon hasn't seen her children since.
Harmon's lawyer, Dana Nessel, hears a story like this once a week.
What Michigan law doesn't say
Harmon is suing for custody of her children. It's a difficult case to make, Nessel says, because Harmon and Davis "never tried to adopt. They didn't think they could."
Truth is, the two of them couldn't adopt together. In Michigan, a single adult can adopt a child, and so can a married couple. But unmarried couples cannot adopt, and same-sex couples can't marry. Michigan won't even recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
And even though Michigan adoption law doesn't explicitly say that an unmarried couple can't adopt, the judges who grant adoptions have come to that conclusion.
These judges are likely influenced by the powerful figures who have attacked same-sex parent adoption. In 2004 Attorney General Mike Cox issued an opinion against same-sex parent adoption. Also, in 2002, a state Supreme Court justice issued an opinion that judges in Washtenaw County shouldn't perform same-sex parent adoptions. The chief judge responded by telling clerks to stop accepting adoption applications from same-sex parents.
What does this mean for Harmon and the children she hasn't seen in two years? It means that she and her two lawyers, Nessel and Nicole Childers, have to try and prove to the courts that Harmon intended to parent the children with Davis, which she did, and that they functioned as a family, which they did.
But before they can do that, they have to fight for the right to bring evidence before the court. That's because Harmon was never a legal parent. Her ability to present her evidence is a question waiting for consideration by the Michigan Supreme Court right now.
If it refuses her case, then Harmon is set on suing in federal court. This, of course, would mean starting the long legal process all over again.
Harmon isn't afraid of climbing the mountain. Her kids are at the top.
Everyday dangers
Gay and lesbian parents have to worry about much more than a potential breakup, Nessel says. All sorts of problems await them in everyday life.
For example: the problem of health insurance. Nessel knows of one family whose kids lost their health insurance because their legal mother lost hers. The kids now use Medicaid services.
"So now they have terrible insurance," Nessel says, "and the state has to pay for that. And here they have another parent who wants to put them on her insurance, but of course the employer won't allow that because they're not legally her kids."
Some kids with same-sex parents have even ended up in foster care when they lose their only legal parent.
Stories like these can prevent couples from becoming parents, Nessel says. She remembers two women who wanted to adopt a baby from a pregnant teenager. They asked Nessel how they could protect themselves as parents.
"They fought and fought about who would get to adopt the baby," Nessel says. Finally, they decided whoever had the best health insurance should be the legal parent.
"But the other one broke down crying and said 'I know too much, I've heard too much, I've read too many stories, I can't raise a child knowing that at any time my child will be taken away from me. It would break my heart. I'm not a strong enough person. I can't go through this. There's no guarantees.'"
The women broke up, and one adopted the child. "So who won in that scenario?" Nessel asks angrily.
Few state lawmakers have tried to do anything about this problem. A bill to make same-sex parent adoption legal has been introduced at least three times, explains Emily Dievendorf, director of policy for Equality Michigan. But each time, the bill hasn't even made it past committee to the state House or Senate floor for debate.
"Any time there is a committee hearing almost everybody offers testimony – and we're talking about psychologists, social workers – as to why this needs to happen and that having two parents is in the best interest of the child," Dievendorf says. "It's overwhelming testimony that delaying this is a terrible idea. And it will look like it should move with logic and scientific evidence in support behind it, and then it doesn't go anywhere."
At home in Ypsilanti, McDonald shakes his head at the legislature. "These kids need homes," he says. "That should be what the legislators should be looking at. There are people, whether they're same-sex couples or not, who are able, willing and wanting to provide those homes. Shame on them for standing in the way of that."
Knowing where to look
Hands Across the Water is an adoption agency in Ann Arbor. In June it won an award from the Human Rights Campaign for helping gay and lesbian parents adopt. The HRC gives out awards like this because many adoption agencies don't welcome gay or lesbian parents.
The agency's founder and director, Kathi Nelson, has noticed something interesting about these aspiring parents: At the monthly information meetings, they're quiet, and they don't ask their questions until everyone else leaves.
In response, Nelson is planning the agency's first information meeting specifically for gay and lesbian parents. She's looking for someone from the LGBT community to be on the agency's board of directors, and she asked a gay parent – McDonald – to lead a support group. He held the first meeting last month.
"I would like that people just to know that it can happen," McDonald says. "That it's a possibility. And it is a struggle, but that's what the group is there for, to help you through the phases of your process."
Renee Harmon keeps relics of her three children around her house. She hasn't seen them in two years, and she is currently fighting for custody. She raised the children with her former partner for ten years, but because she was never a legal parent, she now has no legal right to care for them. BTL photo: Andrew Potter
A mother's warning
What would Harmon say to any gay or lesbian couple that is considering adoption? "I would warn them," she says. "I never thought this would happen to me.
"We were together nineteen years. When you're in love and you're planning a family and you've been together so long, it never enters your mind that something like this could happen. Be careful."
Mostly, though, Harmon is angry that her children aren't protected: "They didn't ask to be born in this situation and to have no rights."
Harmon has become a sort of poster child for the cause of same-sex parent adoption, and she's been contacted by other parents in the same situation, looking for help. "My advice to them was just do what you can to be able to see your children," she says.
She'll keep sending her kids birthday cards and letters, even though they are sent back. She'll keep working with her lawyers, even though she has to throw fundraisers to pay the bills.
She's doing everything she can.
