GA Supreme Court Won’t Hear Suit to Overturn Lesbian Adoption

By Mark Hoerrner

Nora Bushfield, the attorney for Missy Wheeler, received some good news yesterday. For the second time, the Georgia State Supreme Court had declined to hear a case brought by a former partner that sought to strip Wheeler of her "second parent" adoptive status. The partner, Sara Wheeler, brought suit in 2004 against Missy, asking that the courts revoke Missy’s status as a mother to the couple’s shared son, 7-year-old Gavin Wheeler.

In 2000, Sara and Missy were in a loving relationship when the two decided to have a child together. Sara was inseminated and Gavin was born a healthy baby boy. Missy was present from the beginning, fulfilling her duties as a committed partner and active parent. By 2002, the couple had decided that Missy should formally adopt Gavin through a process called a "second parent" adoption.

The couple was interviewed by a family law investigator and when it was deemed that both individuals wanted the adoption, an Atlanta family law judge granted the second parent status to Missy Wheeler. What happened next, the couple has never truly addressed publicly, but Sara Wheeler became involved with another woman. By 2004, the Wheelers had split and Sara began her crusade to overturn the adoption.

The gay community came out in support of Missy Wheeler, stating that the case had ramifications that were important to all gay families. If the Wheeler suit was successful, opponents of the case said, the rights of gays to have families at all would be at risk.

For Missy Wheeler, however, the case is much simpler: she’s a mother who loves her son and will move the world to keep him.

"Despite all the rhetoric," says Bushfield, an attorney with the Collaborative Law Center of Atlanta, "this case has never been about gay rights or the ‘rights of mothers’ as has been said in the press. This case is about Missy’s desire to be a parent to her son."

For the plaintiff, it’s unlikely the case will progress from this point. With two lower courts upholding the original adoption and the state Supreme Court not finding fault with the decisions of those courts, Sara Wheeler is out of options.

At the beginning of the case, Gavin had a "guardian ad litem" appointed to act as an advocate for his welfare in the matter. The GAL is usually an attorney appointed to investigate the situation in which the child lives and make recommendations to the court. The GAL does not argue for or against either of the parties involved in the case, but rather seeks the best situation for the child. Currently, the two women have an agreement over visitation where the two trade off alternate weekends and Missy gets Gavin on Tuesdays. But based on input from the GAL, that situation could change.

For now, at least, Gavin’s family must look past the legal battles and consider something a little more mundane than setting historical precedents or shaping the adoptive rights of the gay community. Now the two women who have gone separate ways must try to build on their own what they originally intended to create together for their young son.

That wonderful, but often fragile, sense of family.