Bookmark & share:

E-mail this page E-mail a letter to the editor Reader Comments (below)

By SUSAN M. COVER
Staff Writer 10/31/2007

enlarge Staff photo by Andy Molloy

JOINT CUSTODY: Domestic partners Victoria Eleftheriou, left, and Carla Hopkins reside in Mount Vernon with their son, Eli.

Today's Top Headlines
from the Kennebec Journal

Augusta panel OKs Tractor Supply store
Beverage-tax foes outraise proponents
BUDGET REJECTED
Little Papi's big dream comes true
RICHMOND Fireworks highlight festival
RANDOLPH OPTING TO SAVE
LOCAL BASEBALL ROUNDUP: Augusta wins easily
Zone 2 playoffs start today

All of today's: News | Sports
from the Kennebec Journal

Today's Top Headlines
from the Morning Sentinel

WATERVILLE Man invades home on Western Avenue
Official defends Woodlands
EMBDEN THIEVES TAKE PART OF DOCK Materials taken belonged to summer swim program for 9 area communities
Drawdown rate depends on rain
Highland Plt. to vote on move toward deorganization
Beverage tax foes far ahead in funding
Former Colby standout back in Maine
ZONE 2 TOURNEY SET TO START

All of today's: News | Sports
from the Morning Sentinel

One minute, he's eating a chocolate chip cookie. The next, he's playing with a plastic firefighter hat. He asks for attention from either parent -- and gets it from both.

For Eli, 2, the biggest challenge seems to be finding someone to play with.

For his parents, the biggest concern is making sure he is legally protected in case anything happens to either one of them.

Last week, his biological mother and legal guardian, Carla Hopkins, and her domestic partner of eight years, Victoria Eleftheriou, filed a petition in Kennebec County Probate Court seeking to make them equal parents in the eyes of the law.

A Maine Supreme Judicial Court decision dated Aug. 30 that allowed a Portland lesbian couple to jointly adopt their foster children is paving the way for others to follow suit.

The court's ruling sets precedent for allowing unmarried couples -- whether homosexual or heterosexual -- to adopt foster children or for one person to adopt the child of another, according to Mary Bonauto, a lawyer with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in Boston.

"The court agreed that the primary purpose of adoption is to protect the interest of children," she said.

By making both parents legally responsible for the child, they each have the power to make health care and school decisions. If something happens to either parent, the child is automatically eligible for inheritance rights, Social Security and worker's compensation, she said.

In its unanimous decision, the court listed those types of benefits and wrote that "most importantly, a joint adoption affords the adopted children the love, nurturing, and support of not one, but two parents."

Maine is the 15th state in the country to allow joint adoptions by unmarried couples. In 14 other states, some jurisdictions allow the practice, though it's not statewide, Bonauto said.

Kennebec County Probate Court has received "a couple" of petitions since the ruling, said Probate Registrar Kathleen Ayers.

For Michael Heath, executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, the court's decision represents a troubling redefinition of family.

"We're against placing children in homosexual homes, whether by adoption or by foster care," he said. "The reason we feel strongly about this is because of our concern for all the people of Maine, adults and children, and how we are going to practice the formation of family."

Heath said the league has formed a task force to look into the issue. They will decide early next year whether to try to take action to change state adoption law, which could mean a citizen initiative to prohibit adoption by gay parents, or new legislation in 2009.

Civic League attorney Stephen Whiting said the law court didn't perform a thorough analysis of the statute, which dates back to 1855.

"In 1855, is it likely the Legislature would have allowed two unmarried people to adopt the same kid?" he said. "Unlikely. A snowball's chance."

Hopkins and Eleftheriou, both 36 and employed by the state Department of Environmental Protection, said as it is now, there's no legal relationship between Eli and Eleftheriou.

"They are legal strangers to each other right at this moment, even though clearly they are not," Hopkins said. "We're a family and that's not going to change, but this will make it a legal relationship."

As a couple, the women have done everything they can legally do in Maine to have their relationship recognized by signing up on the state's domestic partner registry. That gives them legal status similar to married couples with respect to probate matters, guardianships, inheritance and protection from abuse orders, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Maine does not allow gay marriage or civil unions.

At work, they spent more than a year trying to get Eli health insurance that's fully paid for by the state through the employee health insurance program.

Children of married couples who are both employed by the state automatically qualify for fully paid health care coverage, but until recently, that benefit did not extend to children of domestic partners.

The women haven't decided whether they will have more children, but say the experience with Eli has been life-changing.

"It's awesome and it's challenging," Hopkins said. "The hardest, best thing I've ever done."

And while they know that some people don't want to recognize their relationship, they believe most people would want legal protections in place that benefit children.

"It's not about us, Carla and I, and our relationship," Eleftheriou said. "It's about Eli. While people can change the focus to our relationship, it's really about him and providing him with a secure future."

It normally takes a couple of months to get a hearing on an adoption petition in Kennebec County, and decisions are usually rendered at the hearing.

The couple hopes the law court decision has opened the door so Eleftheriou will be legally recognized as Eli's mother -- just as Hopkins is.

"Regardless of what happens between her and I, she'll always be his mommy, nothing can change that," Hopkins said. "She's been there from the start."

Bookmark and share this story: