View full sizeCari Searcy, left, and Kim McKeand pose with the boy they have raised together in Mobile, Alabama. The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled on Friday, Oct. 12, 2012, that Searcy cannot adopt Khaya because the state does not recognize same-sex marriages. -- Cari Searcy considers herself the parent of 6-year-old Khaya in every important way, but an Alabama appeals court ruled today that legally, she is not.
The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals upheld a decision by Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to deny Searcy’s adoption petition. Although she has been with her partner, Kim McKeand, for 14 years – and legally married her in California in 2008 – the court ruled unanimously that Alabama law does not recognize same-sex unions.
“Of course, I was disappointed, but I guess we were kind of expecting it,” Searcy said this evening. “But you always hope for the best.”
Searcy said she and McKeand have discussed appealing the ruling to the Alabama Supreme Court or, perhaps, taking the case to federal court. But she said she has made no decisions.
Searcy’s lawyer, Vivian Beckerle, said the cost of an appeal is one of the factors her client will have to consider.
“It does begin to get expensive to carry it forward,” she said. “I’d like to see them do it, because it is something the state needs to confront head-on.”
This is the second time Searcy has tried to adopt the child. Davis denied an earlier petition in 2006, ruling that the adoption was not permissible because Searcy and McKeand were not married.
In 2008, the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau held a contest asking same-sex couples from other states to write about why they wanted to get married. Searcy, who owns a video production company, said she made a YouTube video chronicling her story and won a trip to the Golden State in September of that year.
Searcy also has told her story on a documentary entitled, "I am a Parent."
After California voters made same-sex marriage illegal again in a hotly contested referendum, Searcy said, she and McKeand waited to see how the courts would treat marriages that occurred before the vote. Ultimately, the California Supreme Court ruled that those marriages would stand.
In Mobile, valid marriage license in hand, Searcy again petitioned to adopt Khaya.
“We’re not asking for the state to legally marry us,” she said. “I’m just asking for the right to legally adopt our son so I can make medical decisions for him, educational decisions, the normal parental things.”
It is not merely a theoretical exercise.
Khaya had open-heart surgery when he was 3 months old, and hospital officials would not allow Searcy to sign permission forms for medical procedures.
But the law’s the law, the appeals court ruled. Voters in 2006 approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and a federal statute signed into law by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s gives states the right to not recognize same-sex unions in other states.
“This ruling solidifies the fact the institution of marriage includes a man and a woman raising the children,” said state Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, who added that he believes this is the first time a court has weighed in on the 2006 marriage amendment.
Alabama’s only openly gay legislator, state Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, said she was disappointed by the ruling.
“If we truly care about the welfare of children, it’s most important that they be in a loving family,” she said. “It restricts the ability to raise the child if only one parent can have custody.”
Searcy said she met McKeand in college in Texas and that they decided to move to Mobile, where McKeand had an uncle. They sold McKeand’s car in 2000 for $1,000 and headed east.
After buying a house, Searcy said, they decided to start a family. Through the help of a donor and artificial insemination, McKeand gave birth to Khaya on Dec. 30, 2005 – five years to the day when they arrived in the Port City.
“We love it here,” Searcy said. “It’s our home.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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