In an Omaha World Herald article the other day, I learned that there are currently 322 foster kids in Nebraska needing adoptive parents. On the one hand, that's really encouraging, as Michael and I still hope to have children and are working toward that goal.
On the other hand, that's really puzzling--For two years we've been asking the foster care system to match us with kids available for adoption, to no avail.
--Scott
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The Omaha World-Herald reported this weekend on churches who are leading the charge to take away equality in employment won by the LGBT community last winter. Of course churches, like ours, led the charge to get equal protection before the law. I'm disgusted and find it reprehensible that people of faith would attempt to take away someone's legal rights.
A recent World-Herald poll demonstrated that a majority of Nebraskans now support some form of legal recognition of same-sex relationships, whether as marriage or civil unions. So, the climate is surely changing. And the attempts to advance legislation this year in Omaha, Lincoln, and Grand Island (though not all have succeeded) is also encouraging.
This is part of the climate we face. If people fight treating us equally and fairly in the workplace, then it is an uphill battle to get our family recognized.
-- Scott
On a positive, here is a picture from the Mayor's signing ceremony last March for Omaha's Equal Employment Ordinance. I got to keep one of the pens!
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There are currently only 18 states where a gay couple can adopt as a couple. Iowa, which is just a few miles due east of me, is one of those. We were tempted to settle in Iowa when we moved here, but felt it important to be located in Omaha (one alternative plan is to make the move if that is the only way to expand our family).
Shortly after we moved here, we went to a workshop on legal issues for gay families where adoption was discussed. There we learned that to adopt through the state in Nebraska one must first qualify as foster parents. We learned further that Nebraska bans openly gay people from fostering. This is not hte result of any law passed by the legislature, but results from an executive memo which has been in place for around twenty years.
This was dispiriting news when we learned it, as you can imagine.
The other options for us are private adoption and surrogacy. Each of those cost significantly more. We will continue to explore those options.
Increasingly same-sex couples in Nebraska have been going through the process to qualify as foster parents (and be able to adopt through the state), but so far the state has not overturned the memo. We have started this process.
So, that means part of the story this blog will tell is how we are challenging the current legal status quo in Nebraska, and working against the system in our effort to expand our family. Stay tuned.
-- Scott
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