GLAD Salutes LGBT Families With Podcast
“What a Good Family Can Look Like: Adoption of Susan”

May 19, 2008 -- Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) is celebrating both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day with the podcast “What a Good Family Can Look Like: Adoption ofSusan.” It relates the 1993 story of Ellen Wade and Maureen Brodoff, who both sought to become full legal parents to their young daughter, Kate, by means of a “second-parent adoption.”

The "lesbian baby boom" in the 1980s not only changed the dynamics of childbearing and parenting, it also introduced a new set of legal questions and challenges for families.

In Adoption of Susan and a companion case, Adoption of Tammy, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the unmarried partner of a child’s biological parent can adopt the child and become a second legal parent without the biological parent giving up his or her rights.

GLAD filed a joint petition on behalf of Maureen and Ellen in the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court, in which both parents sought to adopt Kate. After the judge denied the petition, GLAD appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which heard the case in May 1993. On September 10, 1993, the SJC issued its ruling allowing Ellen to adopt Kate.

The common thread connecting these Susan and Tammy—and subsequent legislation and court decisions throughout the country—is the recognition that, quite simply, adoption is good for kids. The legal, financial, and emotional security of having two legal parents clearly and unequivocally is in a child’s best interest.

Just last year, GLAD won a case, Adoptions of MA and RA, in Maine’s highest court, allowing a lesbian couple to jointly adopt the two siblings they had been fostering for years.  The decision in that case read in part:

“A joint adoption assures that in the event of either adoptive parent’s death, the children’s continued relationship with the surviving adoptive parent is fixed and certain. A joint adoption also enables the children to be eligible for a variety of public and private benefits…Most importantly, a joint adoption affords the adopted children the love, nurturing, and support of not one, but two parents.”

The podcast is the fifth in a 12-part series celebrating GLAD’s 30th year of fighting discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and those living with HIV/AIDS.  Listeners can hear the podcast and subscribe to the entire series at Itunes, or at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Glad30thAnniversaryPodcasts.