by Ken Dixon
Connecticut Post
March 18, 2000

Gay couples and other partners in unmarried relationships would be given full adoption rights in a bill that won approval in the Legislature's Judiciary Committee Friday.

The bill, which failed last year amid claims that it was a gay adoption bill, was approved 27 to 13 and heads for a floor debate in the House.

While opponents of the bill said it would essentially give state approval to homosexual relationships, supporters said that it would allow many more partners in heterosexual unions a chance to adopt children.

The vote came a day after the Vermont House approved a bill allowing same-sex couples to register in civil unions and receive the same legal benefits as married people.

The Connecticut bill would allow partners who share parental responsibility, but currently have no legal standing, to be determined fit by a probate court. This would allow children to stay in a household with the partner if the legal parent dies. It would also give the partner rights to act as the children's guardian in cases such as hospital visits or for signing legal documents.

Criticism of the bill came from lawmakers who called it another blow against marriage as an institution.

"The vast majority of people who live together are heterosexual couples," said Rep. Robert Farr, R-West Hartford, ranking member of the committee. "Most couples are not gay. At some point there will be no point in getting married in the first place."

Rep. John W. Fox, D-Stamford, agreed. "What does this say about the institution of marriage?" said Fox, who voted against the proposal. "We ought to stand up for the rights of the institution."

But Rep. Lawrence G. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, a lawyer who sits in on school expulsion proceedings in his home town, said that from his experience, children don't care about the sexual persuasion of their caregivers or parents as long as they are loved. He told an anecdote about a recent hearing after a 14-year-old pulled a knife and threatened his school principal.

"I don't think he'd give a rat's rear end" who loved him, as long as someone did, Cafero said. "I really don't believe it has to do with marriage. What we're talking about is someone loving that child."

Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Woodbridge, said times are changing and lawmakers have to do what it takes to support loving homes. "We're not in the 1950s anymore," she said. "We have to be realistic about it."

Last year, the bill failed in the House after anti-gay lawmakers added an amendment that would limit legal marriage only to heterosexual couples. The current bill may be less threatening to anti-gay lawmakers because it already has an amendment that indicates the legislation could not be used to open the door to homosexual marriages.