Gay Parents Share Stories of Adoption
New York's Lower Hudson Valley
By Keith Eddings
September 26, 2008  

 WHITE PLAINS - Seven parents told seven different stories last night about the joy and anguish of adopting children.

A father explained how he prepared his young girls to deal with abrupt and insensitive questions about the family from classmates and strangers. A blind mother talked about the challenges of raising a sighted teenager. Another mother talked about the disagreements she had with the natural parents while she raised their daughter in foster care before adopting her. Advertisement

But at an open house to recruit foster and adoptive parents hosted by county, state and private adoption agencies at a local church, the seven stories converged at least once: None of the parents - all of them gay - said they had to go back into the closet when they applied for their kids.

"My husband and I wanted to be parents, but when we were young and coming out, it wasn't even on the horizon of what was possible," said Brian Sheerin, a stay-at-home dad raising 6- and 8-year-old girls in Bedford with a lawyer he recently married. "We finally put in an application and thought it wouldn't happen. It happened instantly."

Barriers to gay adoption have been falling nationwide since the gay rights movement began focusing on family issues more than a decade ago.

Today, only Florida and Mississippi specifically prohibit gay individuals and couples from adopting, but the Florida ban was lifted this month when a county court judge ruled that it violated the state constitution.

With 900 children in Westchester County living in foster families or in group homes or institutions, local child-care workers have been casting a wider net to recruit people who were barred from adopting in an earlier era, including singles, seniors, the disabled, and gays and lesbians. Nationally, 80,000 children live with adoptive or foster parents who are gay, according to 2007 report by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA.

"They're definitely an untapped resource," Karen Hill, a representative of the New York State Office of Family Services, told the potential parents at last night's open house at Memorial United Methodist Church.

Mary Keane, a single gay woman from Yonkers, said she began adopting while working for You Gotta Believe, an agency that focuses on placing teenagers. She took in her first foster child 10 years ago and has taken in at least 17 more over the decade, legally adopting several, including one who attended last night's meeting.

"I was blown away by the number of kids living in a prison-like setting who had done nothing," Keane told the group. "I was in a position where I could do something."

She moved from her studio apartment, cashed in her retirement savings and bought a 12-bedroom Victorian in Yonkers.

Recruiters said gay parents are needed to raise kids who may be questioning their own sexuality because they can provide a more accepting and comfortable home.

Lynn Zelvin, 48, a former Eastchester resident now living in Manhattan who lost her sight at 14, said she thought she could provide that extra support when she adopted Beatriz, a 16-year-old girl, two years ago.

"I'm a lesbian and so is my daughter - at least she told me then she was," Zelvin said. "She's pregnant. Now she's bisexual. I'll be a grandmother in a few months. It's not quite the family I set out to build, but when you have kids, they set their own agenda."

Reach Keith Eddings at keddings@lohud.com or 914-694-5060.