Measure allows gay couples right to adopt
DENVER - Gay and lesbian couples — as well as other unmarried couples and relatives looking to help unwed mothers — could adopt a child under a bill released Tuesday.
Similar legislation was rejected in committee in 2003 and 2004, but House Majority Leader Alice Madden, prime sponsor of the measure, thinks it has a good chance of passing this year with Democrats in control of the General Assembly. Gov. Bill Ritter has told her he would sign it if it came to his desk, she said.
A single individual of any persuasion can become a legal guardian of a child under current Colorado law, but same-sex couples and unmarried heterosexual partners cannot adopt a child together.
If the legal guardian were to die, the child could be turned back over to foster care or could become the subject of a custody battle.
Madden said she is concerned about unwed teens who give birth and want to turn their children over to mothers or other relatives while they go back to school or straighten out their lives. Current law requires them to give up legal guardianship of the child to give it to someone else; the new measure would allow joint guardianship.
“It’s about parental responsibility and protecting our kids and providing them with the most economically stable homes they can have,” Madden said.
The Boulder Democrat, however, realizes much of the debate will turn on the question of gay and lesbian joint adoption, as it has in the past.
The Senate sponsor is Democrat Jen Veiga of Denver, the only open lesbian in the General Assembly and sponsor of another bill that would add sexual orientation to the list of traits for which it would be illegal for employers to discriminate.
Rep. Bill Cadman, a Colorado Springs Republican and chairman of the House Republican Caucus, said that while supporters may try to put a different focus on the bill, the language is no different from that of measures he and other Republicans have rejected many times.
Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, bemoaned the fact Democrats are introducing a divisive social measure when the state has more pressing problems to solve. Her statement echoed claims that Democrats made about Republicans when the GOP controlled the Legislature before 2005.
“I’d rather have our caucus focus on transportation, education and health care, and I’d rather have their caucus focus on those as well,” Spence said.
Democrats appeared united around the measure. Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, said he will support the bill because “being in a loving home as opposed to being in a fostercare system . . . will have huge benefits for a child.”
Madden said if one partner in a relationship were to die, the adopted child would be assured of gaining the benefits that come from that parent.
Gay and lesbian groups cheered the bill’s introduction. Ryan Acker, director of the Pikes Peak Gay and Lesbian Community Center, said he knows of situations where children have been removed from stable homes and placed in struggling homes because of current law.
“What it does is keep the child’s best interests at heart,” Acker said of the bill.
CONTACT THE WRITER: (303) 837-0613 or ed.sealover@gazette.com
