Fight to Adopt's Fundraiser Attracts a Crowd

Melanie and Vanessa

Melanie and Vanessa Alenier's fundraiser for Fight to Adopt, their fledgling organization to help fund their forthcoming appellate case against the State of Florida's opposition to their adoption of their son Ethan was a huge success. The sold out event was attended by a state senator and a city commissioner and a broad range of supporters. Vanessa was emotional when discussing how much all the support, especially that of her lovely GAL Jackie, means to her and to Melanie. But most of all, how much it means for Ethan. These women so obviously love their son. And they so obviously just want to make that love permanent, legal, and go on with their family's life together. But they are mindful that their situation has wider implications for all gay prospective adopters in Florida.

It's a sad thing that because of divisiveness in the Florida legislature that your tax dollars and mine are going to try to prevent families like the Alenier family from achieving the permanency that children like Ethan need. But if the Courts are the only way to overturn this law, which is so very much not in the best interests of many children who would be adopted by their gay caregivers, so be it. The State of Florida has wasted so much money on fighting adoptions that have been allowed by judges looking at the facts and at children's best interests as recommended by GALs and case managers. If the Courts are the only route to get Vanessa and Melanie's names on Ethan's birth certificate, then bring it on!

On September 8, 2010, I know I'll be in the gallery of the Third District Court of Appeals. Silently cheering Vanessa and Melanie's attorney Alan on. I just hope that it won't take as long for them to get resolution as it has taken Martin Gill and his sons to get resolution on their appellate ruling on Gil's adoption of his two sons.  Their case was argued before the Third District Appellate Court back on August 26, 2009. There has still been no ruling in that case. I simply cannot imagine what that long delay in the ruling has meant for Mr. Gill, his partner and their two sons "John" and "James". Ethan Alenier has been so fortunate to have come to Vanessa and Melanie at such an early age, younger even than "James" arrived at the home of Mr. Gill and his partner. "John", who arrived with his brother "James", at age 4, was less fortunate. He wouldn't speak, couldn't hold a pencil and had never even seen a book before. "John" and "James" have thrived in Gill's home, literally the only home that "James" has ever known. The same is true for Ethan, who has thrived in Melanie and Vanessa's care since shortly after his birth.

How can anyone say that these fine people are not fit to be permanent parents? The children involved have had so much go wrong in their early lives. Don't let's have our State take away the one thing in these children's lives that has been right.

Melanie, Ethan and Vanessa

© Marzie @ itsaboutchildren.blogspot.com

Why Ethan's Mamas Are His Mamas

I live in a state where some things are done right (no offshore drilling, though now we have our neighbor's oil) and some things are done very questionably. According to the Florida Department of Children and Families own statistics, in November of 2009, 19,229 children were in foster care in the State of Florida. Some will return to their families but sadly, many children will not. The lucky ones will find a new home, in some cases within their own biological family. 


Currently, when you log into the Florida Adoption Exchange, you see this:

According to the statistics in that display, at a minimum we can say that 648 single children, and at least 70 additional children who only wish to be adopted as part of a sibling group, are available for adoption. As a Guardian ad Litem in the State of Florida, I can assure you that many, many of these children are teens and they have been in foster care, in many cases, for their entire lives. I just have had two young women "age out of the foster care system" and both had been in the care of the State of Florida since birth. One did not even have a first name on her birth certificate until two years before she turned 18.

When I open my Miami Herald every once in a while, I see something like this:

(Image Credit: Barbara Fernandez for the Miami Herald)

Above you see Ethan. He's my focus here. The lovely ladies in the photo are Melanie and Vanessa and while I can say loads of good about them, this post is really about Ethan. Ethan was taken into supervised care at birth, in January 2009. In a short burst of events he was born and at only 9 days old was placed with Vanessa, a relative. Ethan has thrived in Vanessa's care. Not surprisingly, since Vanessa and Melanie love Ethan, they wanted to adopt him. But Vanessa describes filling out the overwhelming (and, unless you've adopted a child, you really and truly cannot relate) number of forms to adopt him and coming to her watershed moment.

From the Miami Herald:

"...the application included a simple question.

Are you gay?

Vanessa, 34, said she did not want to begin her journey as a parent with a lie. So she told the truth -- despite Florida's 33-year-old law banning gay men and lesbians from adopting."

Vanessa and Melanie are the only mothers, the only parents, that Ethan has ever known. The State of Florida saw fit to place the child in their care, after being concerned enough to remove him from his biological mother's care. They were good enough to wipe his bottom, soothe his tears, cool his fevers, help him take his first steps and babble his first words. But in my state, they were not good enough to be his forever parents. Until January 2010, that is. On January 14, 2010 a Final Judgement of Adoption was signed by Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia permitting Vanessa to adopt Ethan after an evidentiary hearing about Vanessa's fitness to adopt concluded that the only bar to her adopting the child was that she loved and had sex with another woman. Judge Sampedro-Iglesia found that Florida's ban on adoption of children by homosexuals was unconstitutional. The State of Florida is currently appealing Judge Sampedro's ruling.

I could say a lot of things about the logic of finding that someone is fit enough to be paid to care for a child but not fit enough to be paid far less and to care for a child for the rest of his life as a minor and commit permanently to assisting that child to ford the difficult passage through life that awaits children and young adults today. I could, for instance, mention the recently published article in Pediatrics, The Journal of the American Pediatric Society,  which studied, in a longitudinal fashion, the 17 year old children of lesbian parents and concluded: "The... adolescents (studied)  are well-adjusted, demonstrating more competencies and fewer behavioral problems than their peers in the normative American population." I could point out that our own Governor, Charlie Crist, now says that he does not oppose gay adoption. I could argue about it being unconstitutional to make a law that gives greater power to child welfare department of the state in deciding a child's welfare than that of its Courts, or to prevent the pursuit of happiness or to invade someone's privacy by asking what gender their lover is. I could talk about the evidence that sexual orientation is hardwired into our brains and that all evidence points to it being genetics rather than choice that makes a person homosexual and that if that's true, you might as well say blue-eyed people can't adopt either. 

But that's not the point to me. The point is Ethan. Ethan has thrived in their care. They are all he knows. They love him and I deeply believe that every child deserves to be loved and have permanency. There are more than 648 children, possibly as many as 3000, in my state waiting for a loving adoptive parent.

Ethan found his parents.

Does our state really have the right to tell this child they aren't his mamas are just because he has two of them?