Keeping same-sex couples’ right to adopt

Last year’s Maine Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex couples to adopt was a blessing for my family. My partner, Charissa, our son, and I celebrated the new year at the Penobscot County Courthouse, where I legally became the parent of the precocious toddler I have been raising since he was born two years ago. It was a new year, and a new beginning for our family.

Given the chance, Michael Heath and the Maine Christian Civic League would roll back the clock and prevent the very adoptions that now provide my son with the protections and lifelong security of having two legal parents. Mr. Heath wants Maine to return to the time when children felt less safe, when their futures were uncertain, when their sense of well-being always carried a thread of anxiety.

Since my son’s birth, I have been a mother to him in every sense of the word. I have loved, provided and cared for him – but in the eyes of the law I wasn’t his parent. Before the adoption process was legal, the “what ifs” in our family were troubling. What would happen if Charissa died? I had no permanent legal relationship to our son. As a mother, I carried this fear with me every minute of every day.

It is a terrible way to live, in fear. But in lifting the ban on adoption by same-sex couples, the Maine Supreme Court last year also lifted that fear.

After Judge John Woodcock certified our adoption, Charissa and I hugged, and we cried. Our sense of relief was palpable. Our family immediately felt safer, more grounded. In the months since the hearing, we continue to be amazed and gratified at the profound shift this legal adoption has created for us, both legally and emotionally. Now our son doesn’t have to wonder which of us is his “real” mom. My mother, always a proud grammie and never doubting her relationship to her grandson, now feels more secure knowing that no one can question her status as a grandparent. Now, we truly are a family.

From bike helmets to plastic covers for every electrical outlet in the house, there are so many things parents do to protect their children. For Charissa and I, adoption was a critical step toward giving our son the protection all children deserve. The right to adopt has given us precious legal rights that are practical and significant. We are so thankful for those rights, and for the peace of mind they have brought.

This summer, Mr. Heath and his organization will be in our communities (and at polling places on Tuesday) asking as many of us as they can to sign their petition and support their agenda, which among other things, would deprive families like ours the right to provide their children with the security of adoption.

I will not be signing the petition. I hope you, too, will refuse.

Melinda Merrill-Maguire of Hampden is a clinical social worker.