Same-sex adoption is the adoption of children by same-sex couples. It may take the form of a joint adoption by the couple, or of the adoption by one partner of the other's biological child.
More adoptions occur in California each year than any other state. There is domestic adoption, international adoption, step parent adoption and adult adoption.
In the United States, adoption is the process of creating a legal parent–child relationship between a child and a parent who was not automatically recognized as the child's parent at birth.
George Alan Rekers is an American psychologist and ordained Southern Baptist minister. He is emeritus professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. Rekers has a PhD from University of California, Los Angeles and has been a research fellow at Harvard University, a professor and psychologist for UCLA and the University of Florida, and department head at Kansas State University.
Child protective services (CPS) is the name of an agency responsible for providing child protection, which includes responding to reports of child abuse or neglect. Some countries and US states use other names, often attempting to reflect more family-centered practices, such as department of children and family services (DCFS). CPS is also sometimes known by the name of department of social services, though these terms more often have a broader meaning.
Adoption in Connecticut means "the establishment by court order of the legal relationship of parent and child." Adoption is provided for in Title 45a of the Connecticut General Statutes. The provisions of this title, with a few exceptions are to be "liberally construed in the best interests of any child for whom a petition [for adoption] has been filed under said sections." Fundamentally, adoption is a two-step process: (1) an agreement to give and receive the child in adoption and (2) approval of said agreement by the probate court.
The adoption proceedings of Emma Rose concerned an application for the adoption of a seven-year-old Georgia girl, Emma Rose, by Elizabeth Hadaway, a lesbian prospective mother.
Arkansas Proposed Initiative Act No. 1 (2008) is an initiated state statute that was approved on November 4, 2008, election in Arkansas. This measure makes it illegal for any individuals cohabiting outside of a valid marriage to adopt or provide foster care to minors. While the measure was proposed primarily to prohibit same-sex couples from being adoptive or foster parents, this measure also applies to all otherwise qualified couples who are not legally married.
In re: Gill is a landmark Florida court case that in 2010 ended Florida's 33-year ban on adoptions by homosexuals. In 2007, Frank Martin Gill, an openly gay man, had petitioned the circuit court to adopt two boys that he and his partner had been raising as foster children since 2004. Gill was prohibited from adopting by a 1977 Florida law prohibiting adoption by gay men and lesbians in that state. After a four-day trial challenging the law, on November 25, 2008, Judge Cindy S. Lederman declared the ban violated the equal protection rights of the children and their prospective parents under the Florida Constitution, and granted Gill's adoption request.
Arkansas Department of Human Services v. Howard, 367 Ark. 55, 238 S.W.3d 1 (2006), is a decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court in which the court unanimously overturned a state policy banning gay adults and their housemates from being foster parents.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the U.S. state of Arizona may face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Same-sex sexual activity is legal in Arizona, and same-sex couples are able to marry and adopt. Nevertheless, the state provides only limited protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Several cities, including Phoenix and Tucson, have enacted ordinances to protect LGBTQ people from unfair discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the U.S. state of Nebraska may face some legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Same-sex sexual activity is legal in Nebraska, and same-sex marriage has been recognized since June 2015 as a result of Obergefell v. Hodges. The state prohibits discrimination on account of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment and housing following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County and a subsequent decision of the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission. In addition, the state's largest city, Omaha, has enacted protections in public accommodations.
Nubia Docter Barahona was a 10-year-old American girl who was abused and murdered on February 11, 2011. Her body was found February 14, 2011, wrapped in a plastic garbage bag in the bed of her adoptive father's pickup truck on the side of I-95 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Her body had partially decomposed from being covered in chemicals, possibly pesticides.
Lofton v. Secretary of the Department of Children & Family Services, is a 2004 decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upholding Florida's ban of adoption of children by homosexual persons as enforced by the Florida Department of Children and Families.
This article concerns LGBT history in Florida.
Until 2017, laws related to LGBTQ+ couples adopting children varied by state. Some states granted full adoption rights to same-sex couples, while others banned same-sex adoption or only allowed one partner in a same-sex relationship to adopt the biological child of the other.
Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward or a non-minor, typically aged 18–21, who volunteers for placement, is placed in a relative placement, a non-related extended family (NREFM) placement, a community family home, an institution, or a group home. Relative, NREFM, and community caregivers certified by the state are typically referred to as "foster parents," "kin caregivers," "resource parents," or other local terms. The placement of the child is usually arranged through state or county social services. The institution, group home, or caregiver is reimbursed for the expenses related to caring for the child. The state via the family court and child protection agency stand in loco parentis to the minor, making all legal decisions, while the caregiver is responsible for the day-to-day care of the minor. Even while their child is in Care, typically birth parents retain Education and Medical rights and the right to contact with their child unless parental rights are terminated by the Court.
Arkansas Department of Human Services v. Cole is a case decided by the Arkansas Supreme Court concerning the adoption rights of unmarried couples. On April 7, 2011, the Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously struck down Arkansas Act 1, passed by voters two and a half years earlier.
Donald L. Babets & others vs. Secretary Of Human Services & another, 403 Mass. 230 (1988), known informally as Babets vs. Johnston, was a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial court case relating to Don Babets and David Jean’s struggle to become foster parents as a gay couple. The case resulted in Massachusetts settling the lawsuit by returning to the “best interests of the child policy”, eliminating policies that considered the sexual orientation of potential foster parents when looking at foster placement.
Stewart v. Heineman, 296 Neb. 262, was a Nebraska Supreme Court case decided on April 7, 2017. The Court upheld the lower court's decision that struck down Nebraska's ban on same-sex couples being licensed as foster parents.
