Legal status of adoption in the United States

Second-parent adoption is a process by which a same-sex partner can adopt her or his partner's biological or adoptive child without terminating the first legal parent's rights.

Second-parent adoption was started by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (formerly the Lesbian Rights Project) in the mid-1980s. California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington State and Washington, D.C. explicitly allow second-parent adoption by same-sex couples statewide, either by statute or court ruling.

As of May 2007, Colorado allows second-parent adoption by same-sex couples. Courts in many other states have also granted second-parent adoptions to same-sex couples, though there is no statewide law or court decision that guarantees this. In fact, courts within the same state but in different jurisdictions often contradict each other in practice.

Single parent adoption by lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals is legal in every state except Florida, which prohibits anyone who is "homosexual" from adopting.

Additionally, Utah prohibits adoption by "a person who is cohabiting in a relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage," making it legal for single people to adopt, regardless of sexual orientation, so long as they are not co-habitating in non-marital relationships. Critics of such restrictive policies also point out that in many of the states that have bans on second-parent adoption by same-sex couples, these same couples are still able to act as foster parents.

As adoptions are mostly handled by local courts in the United States, some judges and clerks accept or deny petitions to adopt on criteria that vary from other judges and clerks in the same state.