“Your sister is gay,” my mom said.
We were sitting at my kitchen table. I was in middle school. I didn’t fully understand the meaning, the gravity of what she said. The only definition of gay I knew was “happy.”
“Okay,” I said. And I never gave it much thought after that. My sister is gay. I accepted it immediately. I never had an urge to judge, to question. I didn’t know that being gay meant a denial of some rights we all so easily take for granted. I didn’t know people were taking their lives because they were gay, or that they were tortured, harassed, bullied and even killed. I didn’t know who you liked mattered to people so much.
After she came out, my half-sister Melissa Keesee would eventually meet the love of her life, Rebecca “Becky” Vann. They would decide to start a family, adopt their son Brody, now three years old, and eventually they would marry in Washington D.C. Although their love story parallels the ideal romances we grow up dreaming about and seeing in the movies, the process was far from ideal.
Today in the U.S. and the world, same-sex marriage and adoption is still a battleground of discussion. In a country where all are supposedly granted equal rights under the Constitution, not all are really equal. Each state has its own laws governing gay adoption, and they can get pretty complicated.
A 1977 Florida statute prohibited same-sex adoption, but in 2010, an appellate court ruling changed that, allowing my sister-in-law Becky to adopt my nephew Brody. But that ruling didn’t fix everything because today, Brody still only has one parent. Legally, at least.
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Melissa, 39, didn’t come out until she was 25, right after she got out of the Marine Corps. She had been married to a guy before; I was the flower girl at the wedding. It was the ‘90s, and she had this giant satin dress with a beaded bodice and sleeves and she wore apple-red lipstick. It’s funny looking back on those photos knowing my sister now who’s more comfortable in her football jersey and cleats (she used to play women’s football for the Women’s Football Alliance team Orlando Anarchy) than she’d ever be in a ball gown wedding dress.
There was no one in her high school who was gay, and it was never talked about in her family. Like other women like her, she was concerned and nervous to come out to her parents, but those feelings quickly dissipated.
Her mom and our dad were “extremely accepting. Extremely,” Melissa said. “Which, there was a relief, but there was also a little bit of surprise, ‘cause you just don’t know how they’re going to react. Nowadays, it’s just so much different than even 15 years ago. I mean people are openly out. Hell, in the military now and allowed to be. Fifteen years ago I would have been court-martialed if I would have came out.”
Becky, 40, knew a lot sooner than Melissa and came out after graduating high school.
The two would eventually meet in October 2006 at the local mall they both worked at. Melissa was the director of security, and Becky was a manager for a cell phone company. Melissa would walk around, talking to tenants at the various stores and kiosks.
“I’d go up to her to talk, and I’d talk to her employees… She was the only one that wouldn’t talk to me,” Melissa said, Becky laughing next to her.
The two of them are sitting on a comfy, taupe couch in their living room, in their charming Lakeland home. They’re both in men’s jeans, V-necks and matching flip flops. Becky has a new hairdo, a short and spiky pixie cut. A cherry-tree-shaped lamp glows warmly behind them, a gift Melissa gave to Becky along with their marriage license. They married on Feb. 6, 2012 in Washington D.C., five years in to their relationship. The lamp represents the cherry trees that grow in Washington D.C.
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Becky has known forever that she wanted to be a parent. Melissa, on the other hand, hasn’t.
“I didn’t,” Melissa laughs. “[Becky’s] the only person I’ve ever wanted to have kids with.” Becky tried to get pregnant herself for close to a year through artificial insemination. The couple had been together for about three or four years at that point. They tried getting pregnant eight or nine times, driving out to Tampa to visit fertility specialists. Becky’s eggs were fresh, but nothing was taking. After their third attempt, they took a break.
“It was the hardest month ever,” Becky said. “Just waiting and hoping then it not happening.”
It was all timing. Everything was “medically great” with Becky, according to the fertility specialist. It just wasn’t the right time.
The last time they tried, before they even knew if it had worked, Becky’s cousin came to the couple and told them she was pregnant. She knew she couldn’t keep the baby, that she couldn’t raise him, and asked if they’d be willing to.
They said yes.
It was a nine month process from the day Brody was born. They named him, filled out his birth certificate and brought him home that day, but he still wasn’t legally their child.
Florida Statute 63.042(3) stated, “No person eligible to adopt under this statute [the Florida Adoption Act] may adopt if that person is homosexual.”
Melissa and Becky still went through the process, a long process which includes a home study and post-placement report. In the home study, a worker from the adoption agency visits the home of the applicant trying to adopt; in this case, it was just Becky going through with the adoption. The worker does background checks, inspects the home and checks for a criminal history before approving the adoption. These visits occurred once a month and sometimes unannounced.
Because of the Florida statute, Becky instead asked for long-term care because she knew the court would deny her adoption. They didn’t want to risk that and have the court try to place Brody with someone else.
“The judge didn’t like that,” Becky said. “He said, ‘No. this child needs to be adopted.’” Because Brody was about a month old at the time the couple first went to court, the judge was insistent on finding him a permanent home. He asked if Becky was willing to adopt.
Melissa was in the back of the courtroom thinking, “Just say yes.” And Becky did.
Had she said “no,” she wouldn’t have looked committed to care for Brody. But by saying “yes,” she knew her and Melissa would have to work through a lot. They were up against a law that said because of their sexuality, they couldn’t adopt their son. Despite that, they were willing to try whatever they could.
“We came home after just choosing to say ‘yes, I want him regardless of what we have to go through and the risks,’” Becky said. “And they could have said no.”
That same day, on Sept. 22, 2010, Becky and Melissa received a text from a family member urging them to turn on the news.
Governor Charlie Crist was announcing an appellate court decision out of the Third District Court of Appeals in Miami that had overturned the statute, finding it unconstitutional to deny somebody the right to adopt solely based on their sexuality.
The case involved a man, Frank Martin Gill, who was the foster parent to two children. Gill was openly gay, and under Florida law at the time, homosexuals could serve as foster parents but could not adopt. In fact, Florida was the only remaining state to have an explicit, outright ban on gays and lesbians adopting.
In 2007, Gill petitioned the court to adopt the children, after the natural parents’ parental rights were terminated. He asked the court to find the statute banning gays and lesbians from adopting unconstitutional as it “violates his rights to equal protection, privacy, and due process.”
Gill was granted the adoption, but the state of Florida appealed. The decision was upheld in the appellate court, and the statute was out.
From that point on, any single gay or lesbian could adopt a child in the state of Florida. But couples? Well, the appellate decision was based on a single gay man’s adoption, not a couple’s.
Robert Webster is an attorney at Jeanne T. Tate law firm in Tampa, a firm that focuses on adoption. Webster, a University of Tampa alum who graduated in 2005, handles same-sex adoptions at the firm.
“If you are a single, gay or lesbian and you want to adopt in Florida, you can absolutely do that now with no problem,” Webster said. “The question now becomes, after you adopt, can your partner then adopt, and we call those second-parent adoptions.” A big question, indeed.
“Because the court could only go as far as the facts allowed it to go… that even if they wanted to say same-sex couples could adopt, they were only presented with the facts of the case which was a gay, single man adopting,” Webster said.
According to Webster, various counties in Florida have approved several second-parent or joint adoptions since the 2010 decision, like Miami Dade County and Hillsborough. But other more conservative counties are denying second-parent adoptions.
Becky was granted the adoption on May 17, 2011, but she and Melissa were fearful to disrupt the process and try for a joint adoption. They didn’t want to lose Brody. They also knew that if they married in another state, even though Florida does not recognize same-sex marriages, their chances would still be better. So they married in February 2012, and six months ago my sister applied for a second-parent adoption. None had been approved in Polk County where they resided before.
The judge denied it.
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They may have been denied once, but Melissa isn’t done trying for a second-parent adoption. She’ll try again through either Tampa or Orlando rather than Polk County, but she’ll have to do the home study all over again.
If Florida recognized same-sex marriage, then the process would be much easier. Melissa would be recognized as a relative of Becky’s rather than “a legal stranger,” as Webster put it. In that case, she wouldn’t need a home study, which is costly and time consuming, and everything could be done in one proceeding.
“It has nothing to do with your sexuality,” Melissa said. “If you’re a decent human being and you care, I mean how many people have you seen whether they’re single parents, whether it’s a mom and a dad, whatever, there’s plenty of people that just don’t care enough about their kids or don’t make them a priority. It has nothing to do with who you’re having sex with.”
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“It’s life-changing,” Becky said on becoming a parent. “He’s perfect for us.”
And Brody is a normal three-year-old, running around with his shirt off, talking up a storm, playing with the toy cars and Superman action figures that litter his room, a monkey and jungle theme full of bright greens and blues. He’s pretty smart for his age too, but I’m impartial as his aunt.
The three of them are in the backyard. Becky is putting a shark-styled helmet on Brody’s head. He’s pouting.
“You’re messing up my hair,” he says, referring to his platinum do.
Becky laughs. Brody gets on his tricycle and rides around as Becky and Melissa stand over him, arm and arm, staring down at their son with two matching smiles on their faces.
He’s a normal kid, really; he happens to have two moms.