Tear down our wall of bigotry

"Something there is about a wall, That wants it down."

By Bob Ewegen, Columnist, denverpost.com from the Web, March 10, 2007

Like most Americans, I learned Robert Frost's unforgettable poem "Mending Wall" in grade school.  Much later I learned it doesn't really apply in Colorado.

For something there is in our state that wants to build a wall, and maintain at any cost a hostile rampart to separate a loving adult and a needy child so that they may never become parent and child.

To build that wall in Colorado and deprive children of their right to two loving parents, it is only necessary to whisper one word:

Homosexuality.

Utter that word and the law -- framed by centuries of fear and misinformation -- will do the rest.

Colorado law, as it should be, is generally driven by the standard of "best interests of the child" on questions of child custody, adoption and similar issues.  If a child is born to a heterosexual couple, both parents are legally responsible for his or her support.  In the event of divorce, a court will assign custody, visitation rights and child support in accordance with what it determines are the best interests of the child.

But whisper the word "homosexuality," and this common-sense standard goes out the window.

Like it or not, gay men and lesbians can and do enter into long-term relationships.  But like heterosexual relationships, gay unions can end with one partner walking out.

When heterosexual couples divorce or separate, the laws of every state spell out the rights and responsibilities of both parents -- married or not -- in terms of visitation, child support and other critical relationships to the children in their care.

Same-sex couples in Colorado, however, have no legal template to govern their relationships, let alone the severing of those bonds.  That can be disastrous for children in the care of gay couples if a breadwinner with no legal relationship to those children chooses to walk away from his or her responsibilities.

A growing number of gay couples do have children -- either from previous heterosexual relationships, by adoption or because a woman in a lesbian relationship bears a child.  But Colorado law currently provides no way for gay partners to establish a legal relationship with their partner's children.

That will change if House Bill 1330 by House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, and Sen. Jennifer Veiga, D-Denver, becomes law.  The bill would let a second adult parent adopt a child who has only one parent if the existing parent agrees to the adoption.

As soon as this bill was introduced, of course, the gay-bashing crowd bellowed "homosexual" and demanded that it be killed because it would allow gay couples to adopt.

But, in fact, Colorado law already allows single people, including gays, to adopt children.  A man or woman who marries a single, divorced or widowed parent can also legally become that child's second parent.  But gay and lesbian couples can't marry in Colorado and hence they, and they alone, are banned from giving their natural or adopted children a second parent.

HB 1330 would indeed allow the partner of a gay parent to become the second legal parent.  But it would help a lot of other children with just one parent as well.

My mother's first husband died when my half-brother was very young.  When she married my father and moved to Colorado, my brother, then 13, stayed with an uncle in Nebraska who was the only father he had ever known.  Yet my uncle couldn't have adopted my brother without my mother relinquishing her parental rights.  Under HB 1330, my uncle could have adopted my brother and put him on his health insurance, among other benefits.

This time, let's not let bigotry and fear keep Colorado from doing the right thing and giving every boy and girl a chance at two parents to love and care for them.

As Ronald Reagan would say, "Colorado - tear down this wall."

Bob Ewegen (bewegen@denverpost.com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post.

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