KJUStOUt
JUNE 13, 2008
northwest
TheJaneGarciaTeam.com
Just Being Parents
Same-sex couples find options
in adoption and foster parenting
by Heather Cassell
ince the ’90s, visibility has been given to
S
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“I’ve been extremely impressed by the caliber
of parenting I see from our gay and lesbian cli
ents,” said Shari Levine, executive director of
Open Adoption & Family Services in Portland.
Approximately 40 percent of the organiza
tion’s prospective parents are gay or lesbian, said
Levine, and Open Adoption & Family Services
allows an open relationship between adopted
children and both their birth and adoptive par
ents. Levine added that both hetero and same-sex
couples can expect a 10- to 11-month adoption
period through her agency.
Many same-sex parents don’t view themselves
as different from other parents, but others specu
late that gay parents may raise their children with
a greater awareness of diversity.
“Being a gay parent hasn’t been defined as be
ing gay, but as a parent,” said Tyler Silver, who
has two children with his partner of five years,
Joel Schudde.
Carrie Adamson-John added, “I think that we
would parent the same if we were straight...sexu
ality is a separate issue from parenting.” She is
raising 2-year-old Dakotah with her partner, Sha-
non. “If you have a child and they are small, you
can be encouraging, nurturing and respectful of
their spirit no matter what. We parent him with
respect and love.”
This is a reoccurring theme among same-sex
parents, and none seemed concerned about their
children having problems at school because they
have same-sex parents.
Trish and Jan Calvin’s voices resonate with
pride when they talk about their oldest daughter,
Sarah, not being afraid to stand up to other kids
when she gets grief for having gay parents. The
parents said that Sarah sometimes gets tired of ex
plaining her unique family to other kids but that
she typically doesn’t have any problem talking
about her two moms and brings books such as And
Tango Makes Three and Heather Has Two Mom
mies to school for the teacher to read to the class.
According to the Williams Institute—a sexual
minority think tank at University of California,
Los Angeles—more than half of gay men and 41
percent of lesbians want to have a child. The re
search organization published those statistics in
Adoption & Foster Care by Lesbians & Gay Men
in March 2007.
According to the report, an estimated 65,500
adopted children live with a gay or lesbian parents
and 2 million gay. and lesbian people are inter
ested in adopting. The institute estimated that of
23,901 adoptions in Oregon, 1,232 are by gay and
lesbian parents. It also estimated that 14,100 fos
ter children are living with gay or lesbian parents
nationwide, including about 250 in Oregon.
Fertility experts are noticing a rise in sexual
minorities looking at reproductive technologies as
an option in their family planning.
Oregon Reproductive Medicine—formerly
the Portland Center for Reproductive Medi
cine—has been helping gay couples and individu
als with their reproductive needs for many years,
“not just lately because it’s become in vogue,”
said Jonathan Kipp, a spokesman for the center.
Kipp, a gay man, said he has noticed an increase
in queer clients at the center from as far away as
France.
“There is a wide range of options for the gay
community now to be able to create their fami
lies,” said Stuart Miller, co-founder and chief
executive officer of Growing Generations. He es
timated the agency has seen a 20 percent increase
in mostly gay male clients with a few lesbian cli
ents annually.
The trend hasn’t escaped the American Fer
tility Association, a New York-based reproduc
tive technologies organization, either. For the
third consecutive year, the organization hosted
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