On June 29, 1999, a landmark decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a non-biological lesbian mother, who helped raise her son from his birth, is a de facto parent with the right to seek visitation.  GLAD represented E.N.O., the non-biological mother, in this case involving a lesbian couple that had shared a committed, monogamous relationship for thirteen years.  From the beginning of the relationship, the couple planned to become parents, and did so following donor insemination.  The couple’s relationship subsequently deteriorated and although they had agreed to jointly adopt their son, the couple separated before they could complete the legal process to do so.  After the relationship terminated, L.M.M. denied E.N.O. any opportunity to visit with the son they had jointly raised.

This is a critical decision because it established that visitation and custody need not only follow a relationship created by biology, marriage or adoption.  The SJC recognized the reality that an increasing number of same-sex couples are deciding to have children, and that children of nontraditional families, like other children, form close bonds with both parents.

As a result of the decision in E.N.O., Massachusetts became only the second state whose highest court affirmed the critical relationship between children and their “de facto” parents.  Other states have since followed suit.

The “lesbian baby boom” in the 1980s not only changed the dynamics of childbearing and parenting, it also introduced a new set of legal questions and challenges for families. How could parents best protect children if only one was a legal parent? Could a non-biological parent establish a legal relationship with a child she or he was raising?

In GLAD’s 1993 case, Adoption of Susan and a companion case, Adoption of Tammy, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the unmarried partner of a child’s biological parent can adopt the child and become a second legal parent without the biological parent giving up his or her rights.

The plaintiff couple in Susan, Maureen Brodoff and Ellen Wade, had been together for 13 years when in 1989 Maureen gave birth to their daughter Kate. By Kate’s fourth birthday, Maureen and Ellen were fully immersed in the day-to-day lives of working moms. But even though Ellen did the hard work of being a parent, as far as the law was concerned she and her daughter were strangers.

GLAD filed a joint petition on behalf of Maureen and Ellen in the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court, in which both parents sought to adopt Kate. After the judge denied the petition, GLAD appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which heard the case in May 1993. On September 10, 1993, the SJC issued its ruling allowing Ellen to adopt Kate.

Susan established that the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court had jurisdiction to grant Ellen’s adoption of Kate. The Court saw nothing in Massachusetts adoption law prohibiting Maureen and Ellen from jointly adopting their daughter.

In Tammy, the Court held that the state adoption law allows adoption by two unmarried people living together, including adoption by the child’s biological parent, regardless of sexual orientation. The Court also said that the existing parent’s rights are not terminated by the adoption.

The common thread connecting these decisions—and subsequent legislation and court decisions throughout the country—is the recognition that, quite simply, adoption is good for kids. The legal, financial, and emotional security of having two legal parents clearly and unequivocally is in a child’s best interest.

Don Babets and David Jean in 1985 thought they were finally on their way to having the family they wanted. Two brothers—a toddler and a baby—came to live with them through the state’s foster care system. But soon after the placement The Boston Globe published an article about “community opposition” to their growing family, and the Department of Social Services (DSS) removed the boys from their home. Within weeks DSS announced a new policy that all but banned gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents.

Don and Dave’s struggle to become parents led to one of GLAD’s early landmark cases, Babets v. Johnston, which reaffirmed that gays and lesbians have an equal right to provide homes for children in need. In the four years the case took to litigate and resolve it confirmed GLAD’s role as a steadfast advocate for equality. Along the way, it also implicated Massachusetts Governor and Presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis and his administration in conspiring against gay and lesbian parents.

The children were never returned to Don and Dave, but in 1990 as a result of the case DSS returned to a “best interests of the child” standard for foster care rather than focusing on the sexual orientation of the parents.