The Lost History of Gay Adult Adoption

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/magazine/the-lost-history-of-gay-adult-adoption.html?mod=e2this&_r=0

by pmcpinto • 11 years ago

72 66 11 years ago

GeorgeOrr2• 11 years ago

Not that long ago people tried to argue that marriage equality wasn't needed to protect basic rights of individuals involved. They just needed to use contracts/adoption/etc.

This is a great article to remind us how bogus that argument was.

gwern4• 11 years ago

This is a great article to remind us how bogus that argument was.

I'm not sure what you mean. At no point does it indicate that the adoption tactic ever failed; in fact, the article seems to be at pains to show that adoption routinely and reliably secured most or all of the rights that marriage would have, and swapping adoption for marriage now is little more than a change of paperwork. Based on this article, you would have to say that marriage equality wasn't needed to secure the basic rights like inheritance, hospital visitation, etc.

GeorgeOrr2• 11 years ago

The article details the gymnastics required, required only of gay couples, to approximate those rights.

And after all the gymnastics, they and only they had to endure, they ended up with approximation of what heterosexuals were able to accomplish with a conversation at a Justice of the Peace.

The article details the patchwork quilt of rights, the limits, the variation among States, that resulted from this sort of "solution."

It only seems successful to those who didn't need to do it.

Jtsummers3• 11 years ago

Military members' adult children receive no benefits. Consequently, a US military member who used this method may have secured certain visitation and inheritance rights, but would not have qualified their spouse for access to the base, base hospital, insurance, and many other things.

Hell, no one using this method would be able to cover their adult partner (over age 26, now, variously 18 or 21 in the past) under company health insurance.

They wouldn't have qualified for any tax benefits of marriage (or penalties, for that matter).

Combining property in joint accounts or joint ownership was slightly easier, but still not as straightforward as it is for married couples.

At no point does it indicate that the adoption tactic ever failed

The adoption technique did not fail in that it achieved what it intended to achieve (primarily the basic legal rights and access of family members). But it did not achieve a marriage substitute, as it did not give them access to everything that marriage entailed.

; in fact, the article seems to be at pains to show that adoption routinely and reliably secured most or all of the rights that marriage would have, and swapping adoption for marriage now is little more than a change of paperwork.

It secured some of the rights, it did not secure all or anywhere near most of them.

Laaw3• 11 years ago

Well, not to be pedantic, but the article actually does say the adoption tactic failed, at least once:

There had been an article in The Advocate about a couple in the Midwest who unsuccessfully tried to adopt each other in order to forge a legal bond.

nommm-nommm3• 11 years ago

How about joint adoption of children and spousal privilege for two really obvious flaws that come off the top of my head.

The other thing is it requires someone's actual parents to sever family ties. Removing someone's parents entirely from the next-of-kin hierarchy.

You're also missing something very very important from the article:

They married 10 days later. After 52 years, marriage is “anti-climactic,” Novak said. But, he added, “psychologically, it makes you feel better. Like you’re a part of the human race.”

antillean3• 11 years ago

People still make that argument now. SCOTUS decisions don't suddenly change everyone's mind.

erispoe3• 11 years ago

SCOTUS decisions don't change hearts and minds, that's true. But SCOTUS decisions tend to follow long-term changes in public opininion. Gay marriage wouldn't have passed 50 years ago. SCOTUS acts like a classic common law court: the law exists independently of the courts, in the people, and the task of the court is to discover it.

DavidAdams• 11 years ago

I'm sure that in legal circles, there are a whole host of similar "law hacking" examples. This seems like a particular ingenious approach. I'd be interested to learn about other circumstances where laws are creatively misused to achieve noble ends. (The examples where the law is misused for nefarious ends are too numerous to mention).

vezzy-fnord• 11 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drzyma%C5%82a's_wagon

gburt• 11 years ago

This reminds me of the tiny house movement that avoids building regulations w.r.t. minimize size and grid hookup by putting wheels on their semi-permanent houses.

corin_• 11 years ago

Also related to buildings, but in this case to avoid taxation - in the UK there was a "window tax", designed to be a progressive tax (the wealthier you are, the bigger your house, the more windows you have, the more tax you pay). To pay less tax, lots of people bricked up some of their windows so that the tax would go down without living in a smaller building. Now days that tax has been replaced in the UK by council tax, which is still progressive but based on house valuations rather than counting windows. You can still see some remnants of the tax avoidance, though, such as http://knowledgeoflondon.com/images/windowtax.jpg

panglott• 11 years ago

Of course, these are ends that are only now being seen as noble instead of nefarious. It was necessary because same-sex relationships were viewed as deviant and sinister for so long.

What's an interesting question is why this was so widely accepted and tolerated by judges/social workers, in an era where same-sex relationships were otherwise treated so punitively.

saint_fiasco• 11 years ago

The GPL in particular, and Copyleft in general, have been described as "viral" licenses because of the way they spread and perpetuate themselves.

gohrt• 11 years ago

The article doesn't mention adult adoption in Japan at all, which is strange. Japanese adult adoption (a centuries long-standing practice) was covered in the US news and HN in the past year.

MatthewWilkes• 11 years ago

Why would it? Japanese adult adoption isn't romantic in nature.

song• 11 years ago

Not always, it's sometimes used by gay partners in Japan as an alternative to marriage since they cannot legally marry. It's exactly the same situation as the one described in this article.

And like the article, it's not an ideal solution.

mc32• 11 years ago

That's different though, that's done in order to "continue" the family line when there is no male heir to inherit a going concern, so while very interesting in its own way it's to address a different social pressure.

Still, yes, very interesting.

masklinn5• 11 years ago

The article is about LGBT adoptions for romantic purposes, as a legal replacement to unavailable legal unions. Japanese "son-in-law adoption" (mukoyōshi) is a question of business capability and name (brand) preservation, not a way to bypass a lack of legal protection in a romantic pairing.

yarrel• 11 years ago

This makes very clear the practical benefits of same-sex marriage and the real impact it has on people's lives.

Whenever I encounter people being dismissive of same-sex marriage because it's just symbolic/a distraction/etc., these are the kind of examples I give to show how wrong they are.

LordKano4• 11 years ago

This happened near where I live. A gay couple did an adoption but now they're father and son so it's not legal for them to marry.

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/north/2015/10/09/Fox-Chape...

masklinn5• 11 years ago

I was going to mention adoption dissolution (which has been used by other couples in the same situation: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/28/newser/...) but the article covers it:

when the couple petitioned Allegheny County Judge Lawrence O’Toole to dissolve the adoption this summer, he ruled the state’s adoption law didn’t allow him to do so.

That's just sad, and they only just went the adoption route 2 years before same-sex marriage was legalised.

ethanpil3• 11 years ago

Why is this article on hacker news? What does it have to do with this community? I am just wondering how it fits in to the vision of what HN is supposed to be. Or do I not understand what it is?

DanBC2• 11 years ago

What do you think should be here? Why, specifically, do you think this doesn't fit?

ethanpil3• 11 years ago

I come here for news on cutting edge technology and startup culture, not social issues.

Mz• 11 years ago

I imagine this would be quite the headtrip for a lot of people to deal with:

Adult adoption by gays and lesbians has only been quietly discussed, both in or outside the gay community, for fairly obvious reasons; there isn’t an easy way to tell your friends and family that the man or woman with whom you share a bed is, legally, your son or father, or your daughter or mother.

I am glad we legalized gay marriage.

The Lost History of Gay Adult Adoption

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