A tale of two ‘real’ moms Judge calls same-sex couple’s adoption ‘progress’

Melinda and Charissa Merrill-Maguire fell into each other’s arms Wednesday morning and wept for joy.

Tears aren’t an unusual sight in the halls of the Penobscot County Courthouse in Bangor on adoption days, but the Merrill-Maguires made history when they became the first same-sex couple in Penobscot County to adopt a child since the law was changed last year.

Technically, Melinda Merrill-Maguire, 29, adopted the 20-month-old biological son of her partner, Charissa Merrill-Maguire, 30.

They are one of an estimated dozen couples around the state who have taken advantage of the change in the law over the past four months and adopted children through the state’s 16 probate courts.

Their son enjoyed being the center of attention Wednesday but didn’t understand the legal significance of the event. As far as the child was concerned, he was just going to “talk to the guy” rather than appear before Penobscot County Probate Judge Allan Woodcock Jr. He didn’t realize the judge had the power to determine if it was in his best interest that both his parents have the same legal rights.

The couple who live and work in Greater Bangor asked that their son’s name not be used.

Woodcock, 87, and the father of seven children and grandfather of 17, granted Melinda Merrill-Maguire’s adoption petition, then posed for pictures with the family. He sat the boy in his lap the same way he has with hundreds of heterosexual couples and thousands of children in his more than 40 years on the bench.

“Now our son never has to wonder which one of us is his real mom,” Melinda Merrill-Maguire said after the hearing.

The Merrill-Maguires were one of two same-sex couples profiled last year by the Bangor Daily News about the change in the adoption laws. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court cleared the way for same-sex couples to adopt on Aug. 30 when it reversed a Cumberland County Probate Court decision and ruled unanimously that a lesbian couple in Portland could petition the court to adopt the foster children they had been caring for since 2001.

The state’s high court ruled that there is nothing in Maine law to prevent same-sex and unmarried opposite-sex couples from petitioning a probate court to adopt the biological children of their partners or to adopt foster children who have been in their care. The justices found that state law speaks only to adoption by married couples.

The law has never barred joint adoption by unmarried people of the opposite sex and always has required married couples to adopt jointly, but probate court judges’ interpretations of the adoption laws and tradition have been barriers to unmarried couples, preventing them from adopting or even challenging the law, the court found.

That was welcome news to the Merrill-Maguires and other same-sex couples and unmarried heterosexual couples around the state.

Shortly after their son, whose biological father waived his parental rights through an anonymous out-of-state sperm donor program, was born, Melinda Merrill-Maguire was granted legal guardianship. That allowed her to sign medical and school-related paperwork for her partner’s birth child. She added the boy to their wills and did as much as she legally could at the time, short of adoption.

“We did as much as we could,” Charissa Merrill-Maguire, 30, said last year. “But it’s not a permanent legal relationship. It didn’t give Melinda parental rights and responsibilities, which is what biological mothers and fathers have as soon as the child is born.”

Woodcock was moved by the adoption.

“It’s a big moment for the county and the state of Maine,” he said after the hearing. “It’s progress. That’s what it boils down to.”

Melinda Merrill-Maguire’s mother, Catherine Kessler, 50, of Litchfield also attended the hearing.

“This is important to me because I’m his grandmother,” she said as tears welled up in her eyes. “And after today, nobody can tell me I’m not.”

Click It! For an audio slide show, visit bangordailynews.com