One of our very own DU members made it into the Boston globe!

And I should add for a very good reason! To DonViejo

How same-sex couples got the right to adopt in Massachusetts

PEDRO HERPIN AND RAMON HERNANDEZ estimate they have had close to 20 foster children in their home over the years. They adopted one of those foster children and have two more children, Herpin’s from a relationship when he was a teenager, and have also adopted a grandson. Theirs is a family constellation that is not possible in every state because of laws restricting adoptions by same-sex couples, and one that could not have existed in Massachusetts 30 years ago.

The family moved to Puerto Rico in 2007 to live near Herpin’s parents but came back five years later. The schools weren’t great, their marriage wasn’t recognized, and their status as a gay couple meant being foster parents was out of the question. “It’s a no-no in their eyes over there,” Herpin says. So they returned and settled in Avon. They most recently fostered a transgender teenager, whom they found through the Home for Little Wanderers in Boston, a child welfare agency that provides residential, community-based, and adoption services. “We heard about him and thought it was a good match for us,” Herpin says.

The match was good — for a while, though the teen recently left for a group home placement. So Herpin and Hernandez are back on the list of families ready for the next kids they may be able to help.

Public adoption — finding legally permanent homes for children in state custody — uses different processes than private or international adoption. In Massachusetts, same-sex couples are a significant part of the pool of parents the state draws upon to provide love, guidance, and homes for thousands of children whose families cannot care for them. The state does not track the sexual orientation of foster or adoptive parents, but people who work in the adoption world say that same-sex couples are absolutely part of the mainstream. “I would say there is a pretty universal acceptance of gay and lesbian couples in the adoption community as viable resources to parent our children,” says Lisa Funaro, executive director of Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE), a Boston nonprofit that works to find adoptive families for kids in foster care.


Posted with DonViejo permission.

WTG Don!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/06/17/how-same-sex-couples-got-right-adopt-massachusetts/ulOm76fNVLApennqpzrVsI/story.html

ETA: so there is no confusion this picture was taken in 1985. But in my mind he's still a hottie! (that's what a heart of gold will do to you).