Does Same-Sex Sexual Behavior Require Society to Discard All Social Convention?
In Maine a woman is trying to undo an adoption that occurred more than 15 years ago. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that the case has nothing to do with a parent caring for a child, rather the parties involved were attempting to manipulate the legal system to obtain benefits for a same-sex partner. In 1991, Olive Watson, daughter of a wealthy computer magnate (long time president of IBM), adopted her 44 year old female sex partner, Patricia Spado, so that Spado could qualify for certain benefits associated with adoption. Now that the partners have split up, Watson wants to pretend the adoption never took place.
I am puzzled by this situation. Exactly what was Watson trying to achieve through this “adoption”? Was Watson thinking about health insurance? Unlikely, since 44 year old children are not typically covered by their parent’s policy. Was Watson concerned about Spado’s access to retirement benefits in the event of Watson’s demise? Again, such benefits are not typically available to an adult child. Was Watson attempting to inject Spado into the family estate planning? Success on that front is yet to be determined; however, if the family wanted Spado to be a part of the estate plan that could have been done quite simply with a codicil to the family’s estate planning documents.
Advocates of homosexual behavior have been quick to point to this bizarre story as evidence of how desperate they are to provide benefits for each other. Such a statement implies that the law does not allow another way for two unmarried people to obtain these benefits, or that the legal barriers to obtaining such benefit are unreasonably burdensome. This, of course, is not true.
There are many ways in which the law permits a person to provide for the financial security of important people in one’s life. The law allows for wills, powers of attorney, life insurance with designated beneficiaries to name but a few. All of these vehicles give anyone the right to pass on estate assets, make medical decisions, gain access to personal records, and give financial security to those we love and respect, even if there is no biological or adoptive relationship. These legal mechanisms are common place and certainly less cumbersome than going through an adoption proceeding.
What is really disturbing here is the willingness to manipulate the traditional concept of adoption without thought to the message conveyed. By manipulating adoption laws, Watson had her 44 year old sex partner legally designated as her child and began what would technically be considered an incestuous relationship. Plain and simple, we have a “mother” in a sexual relationship with her “daughter”. Does advocacy for same-sex behavior require that society discard all social convention? Here it seeks to not only redefine and undermine marriage, but adoptions as well. Where will such a disdain for social convention lead? This case demonstrates how two people were willing to disregard the purpose and design of the law intended to unite children with loving parents in an effort to further their own selfish desires. In reality Watson and Spado used fraud to circumvent a law intended to protect children to create a relationship known to be harmful to children. Certainly in 1991 they understood they had no intention of entering a parent-child relationship as was represented to the court.
Watson’s and Spado’s efforts should raise alarms; and those alarms sound to warn of the unintended consequences that flow from a willingness to manipulate the legal system to destroy honored and tested social conventions. Now that it turns out that Watson and Spado were not as committed to each other as they originally thought, and Spado is seeking to collect money from the estate of the wealthy computer magnate as a “grandchild”, Watson wants to have the adoption annulled. Unlike simply changing a beneficiary on a life insurance policy, making a change to a will, or revoking a power of attorney, the parties are again forcing the state to jump through legal hoops to figure out how to sort out what should have never happened in the first place.
In the end, this story may resolve with Spado collecting estate assets at Watson’s expense. This case should sound a warning to those willing to flaunt tested social conventions and pervert one form of relationship by manipulating the law to force society’s acceptance. Be careful, you just might get what you ask for.