New Families

Gay Adopts Increase Dramatically

Despite new legal restrictions.

More and more gay families across the country are adopting children, census data shows, despite increasing legal restrictions that could eventually take their parental rights away. About 19 percent of same-sex couples raising children reported having an adopted child in the house in 2009, up from just 8 percent in 2000. Same-sex couples are banned from adopting outright in two states—Ohio and Mississippi—and other restrictions apply in roughly half the country that do not allow adoptions from couples who are not legally married. However, in most states, a single person, gay or straight, can adopt. “The reality is we really need foster and adoptive parents, and it doesn’t matter what the relationship is,” said Moira Weir, director of the job and family services department in Hamilton County, Ohio.