By Rochelle Hines

A.P. writer

OKLAHOMA CITY—Heather Finstuen doesn’t consider herself an activist.

She and longtime partner Anne Magro deliberated for months before they decided to become part of a lawsuit challenging an amendment to the Oklahoma Adoption Code that barred state officials from recognizing same-sex adoptions from other states or countries.

And while it took some time and two federal court rulings, the outcome legally restored her place in the lives of her and Magro’s daughters.

“I can’t tell you how relieved we are,” Finstuen said from Washington in a telephone interview. “Our goal was really and has always been to protect our kids and to make sure they have both moms to take care of them. If anything were to happen to Anne, I would be able to step in and keep our family intact.”

The dispute appeared to be headed for another round in federal court when the Oklahoma State Department of Health opted not to appeal a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the agency.

The Health Department became involved after a same-sex couple from Seattle sought a supplemental birth certificate for their Oklahoma-born daughter, indicating both men as her legal parents.

Ed Swaya and Greg Hampel, who went through a wedding ceremony in 1999, filled out the paperwork to get the document but received a certificate back from the health department that listed Hampel as the father, but left off Swaya’s name, he said.

“It said they couldn’t establish maternity for Mr. Swaya, so they left my name off the birth certificate,” Swaya said. “They didn’t want to put two men’s names on the birth certificate.”

The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund sent a letter on behalf of Swaya, 46, a marriage counselor, and Hampel, 38, a first-grade teacher, to the health department, which then sought an opinion from Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s office.

The opinion concluded that if a couple of the same gender received an adoption decree in another state for an Oklahoma-born child, and the decree listed both partners as parents, the Oklahoma Health Department would have to issue a supplementary birth certificate, also listing both partners as parents.

“The Department of Health complied and that should’ve been the end of the story,” said Kenneth Upton, an attorney for Lambda Legal Defense in Dallas. “But apparently some people in the legislature became very upset that the state of Oklahoma issued a birth certificate with two parents listed of the same sex.”

At the end of the 2004 legislative session, Oklahoma state lawmakers pushed through a new law stating Oklahoma doesn’t recognize adoption of children of two people of the same sex.

That’s when Finstuen, Magro and another lesbian couple, Jennifer and Lucy Doel, got involved, suing the Oklahoma Health Department, Gov. Brad Henry and Edmondson.

Nationwide, most states allow an unmarried individual to adopt a minor child, without regard to the individual’s sexual orientation (subject to a court finding that such adoption is in the child’s best interest), according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Some states permit a gay or lesbian partner to adopt the other partner’s child (California, Colorado), while others have civil union statutes that provide parties to such unions the same legal benefits given to married couples, including joint adoptions (Connecticut, New Hampshire).

The state of Mississippi doesn’t allow gay couples to adopt and Florida prohibits gay individuals from adopting, the NCSL said.

Former Oklahoma state Rep. Thad Balkman, the author of the Oklahoma amendment to the adoption code that started the legal fight, said he’s disappointed by the court decisions, calling it “another example of activist judges trying to legislate from the bench.”

Balkman, a Republican, said his amendment was aimed at cementing into law what had already been the practice of the state health department.

Balkman and state Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) both said the development is another example of what they called the “homosexual agenda,” and runs counter to the spirit of a law passed several years ago that banned same-sex marriage.

“When we say homosexual agenda, we just mean a deliberate push or movement of some activist homosexual who wants their lifestyle to be considered mainstream and normal, which flies in the face of the Judeo-Christian ethic that this nation has lived under for more than 200 years,” said Kern, a former educator.

Kern said she may consider legislation on same-sex adoptions in the upcoming legislative session that would be more likely to pass constitutional muster, but with the state legislature not in session, nothing’s been discussed or introduced yet.

As for Finstuen and family, they’ve moved on, to Washington D.C., where Magro is teaching at a university.

“We had a wonderful experience in Oklahoma, in the communities of Norman and Oklahoma City, and it was really just this law that threatened our family” that was negative, Finstuen said.

Swaya and his family are focusing on other things, too. His daughter, now 5, began kindergarten last month at the school where Hampel works.

“She’s one of the most well-adjusted children you’ll ever meet,” he said. “She’s polite, healthy and smart. No one is going to tell me that doesn’t have anything to do with the way she’s being raised.”