{"id":13068,"date":"2011-03-25T14:10:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T19:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=13068"},"modified":"2011-03-25T14:10:42","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T19:10:42","slug":"law-gone-wrong-adoption-in-the-context-of-same-sex-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/03\/law-gone-wrong-adoption-in-the-context-of-same-sex-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"Law Gone Wrong: Adoption in the Context of Same-Sex Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s post is the first in an occasional series entitled \u201cLaw Gone Wrong.\u201d\u00a0 The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course).\u00a0 First up is Professor David Papke. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As currently written, WIS. STAT. \u00a048.92 \u2013 Effect of Adoption<\/em> is a bad statute with unintended results.\u00a0 The statute says that, with the exception of stepparent adoptions, an adoption ends all legal relationships between the adopted child and that child\u2019s biological parents.\u00a0 Put in blunter words, the rights of all<\/em> biological parents are terminated when an adoption is finalized. This statute no doubt grows out a determination to normalize the lives of adopted children.\u00a0 They are to have only one set of parents and to know just who those parents are.\u00a0 On a deeper level, the statute reflects the possessive imperatives so central in the dominant American world view and extends it to adoptive children.<\/p>\n

The great problem with the statute involves same-sex couples with children.\u00a0 It is increasingly common for one\u00a0member of a same-sex partnership to have a child\u00a0brought into the relationship from\u00a0a prior opposite-sex marriage, as a result of adoption, or conceived via artificial insemination.\u00a0 Call this the “pre-existing parent” in the same-sex partnership.\u00a0 The pre-existing parent might want their same-sex partner to adopt any children brought into the relationship.\u00a0\u00a0In such cases, the second\u00a0partner might be perceived as a parent by the child or children, and the second\u00a0partner might be ready and willing to adopt any child from a previous relationship.\u00a0 However, if this adoption is finalized in Wisconsin, the statute operates to automatically terminate the parental rights of the pre-existing\u00a0parent -\u2013 a patently unwanted result given a hope to achieve some degree of family unification through adoption.\u00a0 For a judicial confirmation of the absurd result of the Wisconsin statute, see Interest of Angel Lace M.<\/em>, 184 Wis. 2d 492, 516 N.W. 2d 678 (1994).<\/p>\n

What could be done to fix WIS. STA.\u00a0 48.92<\/em>?\u00a0 A whole new statute allowing and facilitating adoption by same-sex partners would be the best solution, but one fears the state\u2019s current hostility toward expanding gay rights would make this difficult to achieve.\u00a0 Alternatively, one could change the existing statute to create an exception for same-sex partners seeking to adopt their partners\u2019 children.\u00a0 As noted above, the statute already includes a comparable exception for stepparents adopting their spouses\u2019 children.\u00a0 Stepparents, after all, would also consider it absurd if the act of adopting\u00a0their stepchildren terminated the parental rights of the\u00a0pre-existing\u00a0parent in the relationship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s post is the first in an occasional series entitled \u201cLaw Gone Wrong.\u201d\u00a0 The editors of the Faculty Blog invited Law School faculty to share their thoughts on misguided statutes, disastrous judicial decisions, and other examples where the law has gone wrong (and needs to be nudged back on course).\u00a0 First up is Professor David […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-law","category-wisconsin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}