Gay men detail their struggle to adopt
They helped overturn a N.J. law barring unmarried couples from joint adoption.

By KURT BRESSWEIN Of The Morning Call

To their children, Jon is Daddy and Michael is Father.

Technically, neither fathered the children, but both are patriarchs in the Galluccio family.

The Galluccios, who are gay, in late 1997 overturned a New Jersey law that barred unmarried couples from jointly adopting children.

Adam, an infant abandoned by a drug-addicted mother and born with numerous diseases, was the center of the New Jersey couple's struggle to form a family. Today, he is a healthy 3-year-old who attends preschool and comes home to his loving parents.

Jon and Michael were at Muhlenberg College's Trumbower Auditorium Thursday night to discuss their life together with and without their children, who include two foster daughters.

They met at New Jersey's Glassboro State University, now Rowan University, in 1983. At that time, Michael said he was heterosexual, but Jon had known for years he was not. Jon was attracted to Michael immediately, and Michael's feelings surfaced suddenly that February.

Jon's family welcomed his orientation because he was adopted into a dysfunctional family, and his family was thankful he had found his problem, as they saw it, he said.

Michael's Italian Catholic family disapproved of the relationship largely because he was the eldest and was expected to have children and carry on the surname.

Their inability to have children together pained both men and their families. ''We went into the relationship with this resentment that I'm never going to have kids because of him,'' Michael said.

''Our goals then switched to striving for fabulousness,'' Jon said, and they escaped to Los Angeles for the fast life of drugs and sex.

''And we thought that was wonderful,'' Michael said.

''We thought it was fabulous,'' Jon added.

One day, they found their home had been burglarized and went to a pay phone to call someone but realized they had no one to turn to.

They came back to New Jersey to be quiet suburbanites but soon moved to New York City. Jon worked as a marketing manager with AT&T Wireless until a new vice president fired him on what he said were ''100 percent false charges.''

Jon settled with the company and found work as an actor. It was 1994, the 25th anniversary of Stonewall, a gay bar in the city where patrons had stood up to authority and effectively started gay and lesbian rights activism.

Jon was in a show about Stonewall, and the Galluccios were inspired to further homosexual acceptance, they said.

At the same time, Michael realized he wanted children, even though his initial reaction was, ''No, that's not right to do to kids,'' he said. ''Jon was acting, which translates into 'home a lot,' and researched how two men could get children.''

Jon's research showed it would be easy to adopt a child in New Jersey. They would have met fewer barriers had Michael adopted first and Jon gone through the process as a second parent.

Thinking they could adopt jointly as an unmarried couple, both went through nine months of training and testing and then learned of Adam. At birth, he tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, tuberculosis and Hepatitis C.

Adam also had fluid in his lungs and cocaine, heroine, methadone, alcohol and nicotine in his blood, Michael said.

Both men knew they wanted to care for Adam and would do anything for him, they said. They ran into problems, though, because New Jersey law at first permitted only Michael to adopt Adam.

The couple wouldn't accept this for several reasons: The process for a second parent adoption is lengthy, complicated and expensive. They also worried about where Adam would go if something happened to Michael.

Another concern was that Adam would be at a disadvantage in life because he would have only one legal parent.

They fought New Jersey law and won a reversal that allows children under the state's custody to be adopted by unmarried couples.

The Galluccios said heterosexuals have the power to further the rights of gays and lesbians and invited their help.

The Galluccios' visit, which highlighted the weeklong Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian Allies for Diversity (BGLAD) week, was well received by both the college and the community.

Muhlenberg Chaplain Don King commended the couple's commitment to each other and their children and said, ''It's real important that the college community lift up and be supportive of gays and lesbians and the variety of people out there.''

Liz Bradbury, Lehigh Valley representative of Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance for Political Action, said the Galluccio family cuts through social boundaries. ''I think they're role models [for] all kinds of families.''

''I liked the fact they didn't do it so a lot of people could look at the ruling and find it impressive,'' said 19-year-old psychology major Hannah Stern. ''They did it because they wanted to have a family.''

Their family is as big as it's going to get, the Galluccios said. Madison, 2, lives with them now, and her 16-year-old sister, Rosa, will move in permanently in June.

Adam's most recent HIV test came back negative, but he has since been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Syndrome.

[The Holden-Galluccio family is online at jgalluccio@email.msn.com ]