Mom Changes Mind in Relinquishment After Learning Gay Couple Might
     Adopt Son

     By ROBERT HOLGUIN
     Associated Press Writer

       SEATTLE (AP)  A woman who gave her 3-year-old son up for
     adoption a year ago says she now regrets her decision and can give
     him a good home. She filed to regain custody after learning a gay
     couple might adopt the boy.
       Megan Lucas, 22, says she has cleaned up her life and wants to
     raise her son. She says she is not trying to regain custody of her
     son simply to prevent two homosexual men from adopting him.
       ``I mean, we don't agree with that lifestyle, but that isn't the
     reason we want him back. We've wanted him back all along,'' Lucas
     said. She acknowledged, ``I don't want my child raised like that.''
       Lucas, who was unmarried when the baby was born, left her son
     with her 17-year-old sister in 1990. She relinquished custody a
     year ago, after, she says, being pressured by state officials. The
     boy is now with foster parents. His father hasn't come forward in
     the dispute.
       Lucas says she overcame a drinking problem, has married, and
     lives a ``normal, loving'' life on Orcas Island with her husband
     and 17-month old daughter.
       ``We haven't always been the best place for him, but we are
     now,'' Lucas said. ``Nobody seems to recognize that.''
       Lucas relinquished her parental rights to the state on Sept. 8,
     1992, after a series of hearings. She legally had a year to change
     her mind, but missed the deadline by a day, Assistant Attorney
     General Dennis Kole said.
       On Sept. 9, 1993, Superior Court Judge Steve Mura in Bellingham
     issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the boy's
     adoption. Lucas planned to ask the judge to extend the order at a
     hearing Monday.
       Richard Kimberly, Lucas' attorney, said he would ask the judge
     to bar the state from placing the boy even temporarily with the gay
     couple, Louis and Ross Lopton of Seattle, who are licensed foster
     parents.
       ``There's a very real chance that this adoption is not going to
     happen, and placing him there will only serve to confuse the
     child,'' Kimberly said.
       But Kole said placing the boy with foster parents with adoption
     prospects, like the Loptons, is in the child's best interest.
       ``The mother has no legal standing to participate in any
     discussion about where this child should be placed,'' he said.
     ``Legally, it would be the same if someone came off the street and
     started voicing their opinion about the welfare of this child.''
       ``This wasn't an involuntary termination,'' he added. ``It was
     her idea to relinquish her right to this child.''
       The Loptons won't talk with reporters, said Rebecca Perbix, who
     leads a counseling group for gay and lesbian adoptive parents at
     the Children's Home Society.
       ``As far as they're concerned, that child is theirs
     emotionally,'' Perbix said. ``They have done everything they are
     supposed to do. It's now up to the state and the courts.''
       She said Washington is one of six states that permit adoptions
     by same-sex couples.
       Since 1985, about 100 homosexuals have gained parental rights
     through the courts, according to the National Center for Lesbian
     Rights in San Francisco.
       Earlier this month, however, a state judge in Virginia denied a
     mother custody of her 2-year-old son because the woman is a lesbian
     living with her lover.
       Kole said the Loptons' sexual orientation isn't at issue in the
     Washington case.
       ``It has nothing to do with whether it's appropriate for a
     homosexual couple to adopt a child,'' Kole said. ``It's about
     whether her consent was valid or not.''


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