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Quest ends
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A Seattle couple is allowed to adopt a 4-year-old boy
despite months of legal wrangling
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or Luis and Ross Lopton, it is a dream
come true. After four years of training,
and months of legal wrangling, the
Seattle gay male couple has become
the adoptive parents of a 4-year-old
boy, Gailen.
“We’ve wanted this for so long, we are abso­
lutely thrilled,” says 31-year-old Luis Lopton, a
banker. “This hasn’t been the easiest time, but
we’re glad things ultimately turned out the way
they did.”
A King County Superior Court commissioner
last month signed an adoption decree allowing the
couple to adopt Gailen, a special needs child who
has been placed in numerous foster homes over
the years. For the Loptons, who began their quest
to become adoptive parents more than four years
ago, that action was a long time in coming: Luis
and Ross, a 35-year-old banker, spent years train­
ing for this moment by receiving counseling for
prospective parents and attending a support group
for people considering adopting special needs
children.
In September 1993, the Washington state Di­
vision of Children and Family Services placed
Gailen with the couple. State officials said the
placement was a good one particularly because of
the men’s extensive training and the fact that Luis
and Gailen are both of Latino descent. (Gailen’s
birth father, who has never been publicly identi­
fied, is of F\ierto Rican descent, as is Luis Lopton.
Ethnic and racial compatibility is often a factor
considered by officials when placing a child in a
home.)
“Gailen had been bounced from foster home
to foster home and he had some behavioral prob­
lems,” says Luis. “We understood this and knew
that he needed parents who would have the pa­
tience and love necessary to work with him.
That’s one of the reasons we spent so much time
training and studying and learning about special
needs children. Ross and I knew we could create
a secure home for Gailen.”
Upon learning her son had been placed with a
gay male couple, Gailen’s birth mother, Megan
Lucas, who had given Gailen up for adoption in
1992, attempted to rescind her decision to surren­
der her custody rights. In a newspaper interview,
Lucas said seeing a gay male couple adopt Gailen
F
would be her “worst nightmare.”
With the assistance of the Rutherford Insti­
tute, a national religious right organization, Lucas
launched a publicity and legal campaign to get
Gailen back. A Whatcom County Superior Court
judge rejected her effort because Lucas missed
the petition deadline. She and her husband, who is
not the boy’s birth father, then attempted to adopt
Gailen, but state officials rejected that effort cit­
ing her history of drug abuse and her criminal
record. She appealed that decision to the state
Supreme Court, which refused to hear Lucas’
appeal last September.
“We think it’s very unfortunate this blew up
the way it did. For us, it was simply an issue of
creating a home which could meet the needs of a
child like Gailen,” says Luis Lopton. “It’s unfor­
tunate that the mother had to make this into a gay
issue, because it isn’t. It’s a matter of who can best
meet the needs of this child and we’re delighted
the state has viewed it that way as well.”
He adds, “We caught flak from both sides—
the right wing and gay leaders who wanted us to
become their poster family. They thought we
were ideal for that because we are a very boring
couple; you know, we go to work and go square
dancing for fun. But we wanted to keep a low
profile and focus on adopting Gailen. We didn’t
want to become symbols of the gay rights move­
ment.”
Luis says it is “unfortunate” that Megan Lucas
appears to have become a “pawn of the right
wing.” He says he’d like Gailen to have a relation­
ship with his birth mother at some point. “W e’re
not trying to replace his mother,” he says. (Megan
and her husband, Wade, have since legally sepa­
rated and he has filed for divorce. Her husband
was awarded custody of the couple’s 2-year-old
daughter after Megan reportedly threatened to kill
him, their daughter, and herself.)
Luis says, “Gay families are so well prepared
to become parents because of the incredible scru­
tiny we are placed under by the state and the
public. We train for this. This is not some fantasy
we are fulfilling on a whim. We have to really
think about the consequences and responsibili­
ties. It would be great if all prospective parents
would be required to go through the same type of
training.”