Michigan mom's gay adoption heartbreak

[decocker 7,198]

i don't really understand why so many people go through a judge to arrange visitation. it's amazing how many parents, post breakup, use their children as pawns to get back at the other parent. people need to grow up and get along, for the sake of the kids.

[^_^ 5,021]

Sure.

Because you can get away with it. You get away with a lot around here. Seems everyone is too intimidated of you to hold you accountable, except of course for my brave friend Danno...

[Penny Lane 8,159]

i don't really understand why so many people go through a judge to arrange visitation. it's amazing how many parents, post breakup, use their children as pawns to get back at the other parent. people need to grow up and get along, for the sake of the kids.

Agreed.

Thanks for actually responding to the story.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Evylin

[^_^ 5,021]

[quote name=' timestamp='1363120468' post='6041769]

Because you can get away with it. You get away with a lot around here. Seems everyone is too intimidated of you to hold you accountable, except of course for my brave friend Danno...

Agreed.

That was easy.

[james&olya 1,121]

i don't really understand why so many people go through a judge to arrange visitation. it's amazing how many parents, post breakup, use their children as pawns to get back at the other parent. people need to grow up and get along, for the sake of the kids.

It takes two to cooperate. My ex's version of cooperation was for me to turn over all my assets and income to her and disappear. Because I found that unacceptable I was forced to use a biased court system. My children live with me now that it is up to them. The courts are no better than the people and their attitudes that staff them! Sometimes they really suck!!

[^_^ 5,021]

My children live with me now ... Sometimes they really suck!!

That's mean.

[decocker 7,198]

It takes two to cooperate. My ex's version of cooperation was for me to turn over all my assets and income to her and disappear. Because I found that unacceptable I was forced to use a biased court system. My children live with me now that it is up to them. The courts are no better than the people and their attitudes that staff them! Sometimes they really suck!!

the prevalent attitude seems to be that it's okay to require a certain amount of money in exchange for visitation. which is bs. child support should have nothing to do with visitation. both parent's presence is equally important, even if one is carrying more financial burden than the other.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Sorry to repeat. Would it have been at all likely the one woman would have any custody given there was no blood relation while a blood relative still is alive?

Edited March 12, 2013 by Usui Takumi

[decocker 7,198]

Sorry to repeat. Would it have been at all likely the one woman would have any custody given there was no blood relation while a blood relative still is alive?

that's where the validity of the adoption comes in..

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Sorry to repeat. Would it have been at all likely the one woman would have any custody given there was no blood relation while a blood relative still is alive?

Since adoption is a state-specific issue, this would be covered by Michigan law. There is law regarding third party (i.e. non-natural parent) custody arrangements but since the adoption has been ruled invalid, I don't think she would have any custodial rights as per Michigan's Child Custody Act of 1970, § 722.26(c ).

Edited to fix funky link -- here it is:

http://1.usa.gov/ZGSWsl

Edited March 12, 2013 by the maven

[GandD 5,966]

Its a shame for sure. Many heterosexual couples don't deserve the right to raise kids together.

Here's the deal, in my mind, this is a lot like immigration. You have to know the law in order to create your strategy. If you're a gay couple and you live in Michigan, you can't get married. This will ultimately mean that if all goes south in your relationship or someone dies, there is going to be an issue with possessions and children. So, the lesson here is, don't expect the law to help you with something it doesn't support or acknowledge. I don't really agree with the law but we have to follow it until it gets changed.

[Danno 1,228]

Lansing, Michigan (CNN) – Marie Wolfe says she and her partner of four years, Becky, were as in love as any straight couple when they decided to start a family. Gay marriage is illegal in Michigan, but the couple exchanged rings and used a sperm donor so that Becky could get pregnant. Marie had always wanted kids, even before Becky, but couldn't have them herself.

The couple became the proud parents of twins, a boy and a girl, and three months after they were born Becky (whose name has been changed to protect her identity) and Marie went before a Michigan judge. Becky absolved her parental rights and with the help of an adoption agency and the judge the two adopted the children together.

Marie says they were given a state-issued adoption certificate and a new birth certificate with both of their names on them.

[3:07] “When I had the adoption certificate in my hand and I realized it was official, it was legal, nothing was ever going to come between the children and I, I just felt like, I’m going to have the privilege of raising these two children for the rest of my life.”

But as in many relationships, the bind between Becky and Marie began to strain. When the children were just over a year old, the couple broke up. Becky took the children and left, and Marie called her lawyers to try and win partial custody.

But another Michigan judge named Richard Garcia was assigned the case, and he ruled that the adoption was invalid:

[5:25] “What this really was is what we call a fiction under the law. There was an attempt to create law where none exists. In Michigan, marriage is defined as marriage between a man and a woman. Some activist judges, quite frankly, decide they don’t like the law the way it is so they come up with a ruse to get around that situation.”

Last summer, a different lesbian couple sued the state of Michigan for the right to adopt the three children they are raising together. Michigan passed a constitutional amendment in 2004 banning gay marriage. Only individuals and married couples are allowed to adopt, so the lawsuit encompassed the ban on marriage as well.

Last week the judge presiding over the Michigan case decided to suspend his ruling until the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. Arguments in that case will be heard later this month. A decision is expected this summer.

Marie Wolfe is paying extra attention to the Michigan ruling. This is her story.

http://cnnradio.cnn.com/2013/03/12/michigan-moms-gay-adoption-heartbreak/?hpt=hp_t3

Oddly enough all the sympathy seems to be for the Lesbian rather than the Children.

These child custody laws are written to protect broadly .... children.

To demonstrate how flimsy this whole thing was...

They not only went through the bogus court process to get the child adopted.... and then broke up all before the kid was a year old.

What judge in his right mind would grant custody to this women with whom a 1 year old has only the smallest attachment? It is primarily about the well being of the child not the parent.

Lets assume the real mother forms a more lasting relationship with a another women.... is that in its self not enough of a hurdle for the child to process without having another quarrelsome lesbian in the picture?

Gay families by their nature are formed on broken or cobbled together relations, it is one reason the Statistic of failure present them self so clearly.

I'm thinking in the long run, the scorned Lesbian who was left behind will be thankful when she realizes.... that Judge saved her from a ton of support payments. (if she is even working).

As a side note I loved this opening line.....

<<<<Marie Wolfe says she and her partner of four years, Becky, were as in love as any straight couple when they decided to start a family. >>>>

-How would she know?

[decocker 7,198]

I'm thinking in the long run, the scorned Lesbian who was left behind will be thankful when she realizes.... that Judge saved her from a ton of support payments. (if she is even working).

it's silly to blame the sexual nature of the relationship instead of blaming the court for determining the adoption invalid.

if my husband and i split - and he wanted to get some sort of visitation with my son and i disagreed, i would win in court because my husband hasn't legally adopted my son. he is nothing but my son's stepfather, no blood relation. he could be with me and my son for the next ten years, we could split and he would still have no legal rights to visitation with my son. however if my son's father signed over rights and my husband legally adopted my son, he would have visitation rights if we were to ever split. see how that works?

[JensJrny2Ray 367]

Those darn quarrelsome lesbians!

[james&olya 1,121]

the prevalent attitude seems to be that it's okay to require a certain amount of money in exchange for visitation. which is bs. child support should have nothing to do with visitation. both parent's presence is equally important, even if one is carrying more financial burden than the other.

Oh, she got her money! Thousands every month. I never contested a single cent of what the guidelines they used suggested. That was not nearly enough. Even with those tens of thousands yearly my children were dressed in rags not fit even for work clothes. So I bought them decent clothes as well. They live with me now and have decided themselves, against my urging by the way, to cut off all contact with her. They completely rejected the 'wisdom' of the biased court system that they should be with their mother.

Many judges are idiots! It is a #######-shoot going into family court. Many of them are totally ignorant of child psychology and children's needs. So they just assume that because they know nothing other men must not know either and therefore the mother, any mother, must be the better parent!