Governor Overturns Policy for Adoptions : Politics: Wilson’s decision to rescind rule making it easier for gay and unmarried couples to adopt is assailed by activists. Conservatives hail him for reaffirming their values.

Gov. Pete Wilson, apparently looking to shore up his conservative credentials, overturned an action by one of his agencies that sought to make it easier for unmarried and gay couples to adopt children.

Wilson, who is considering running for President, also reinstituted a 1987 policy that frowns on adoptions by unmarried couples, and instead favors “couples who have formalized their relationship through a legal marriage.”

The governor’s decision was denounced Monday by gay activists and others who support the rights of unmarried people to adopt children, while conservatives hailed Wilson for reaffirming their values.

Judges, who must approve adoptions, have been granting gays parental rights for a decade in California, and Wilson’s decision is unlikely to stop gays, single parents or unmarried couples from adopting children. There is no state law prohibiting such adoptions.

In December, the Department of Social Services sent a letter to each county saying that “effective immediately, licensed adoption agencies and the department will no longer deny applications, withhold consent to an adoption petition, or recommend disapproval of an adoption petition based solely on the applicants’ or petitioners’ marital status.”

“Marital status is but one of the factors to be considered in making a best interest determination,” the policy said.

In reference to adoptions by gay couples, the December policy said that county social workers must consider the “merits as it concerns the best interest of the child” when deciding whether to support the parent’s request to grant “limited consent adoption” to an unrelated adult. In many instances, gay parents seek to give limited parental rights to their partner, and judges can confirm it.

Wilson spokeswoman Leslie Goodman called the December policy “a huge overstep,” and said it was not approved by Wilson or any of his top advisers.

Wilson acted on Saturday to rescind the December letter after he was questioned on Friday by a columnist from the Sacramento Bee. He not only reinstated the more restrictive 1987 policy, but he also ordered a formal review by the Office of Administrative Law, a step not taken when the 1987 policy was adopted.

“Going through the Office of Administrative Law will give the policy directive more weight,” said Shannon Bowman, spokeswoman for Wilson’s Health and Welfare Agency. “It is more enforceable when it is backed up by an administrative directive.”

State officials are not certain how many unmarried people adopt children in this state, but 6,200 adoptions were approved in 1993. Diane Goodman, an Encino attorney who handles adoptions, estimated that judges in Los Angeles County approve 50 to 100 adoptions involving gay parents each year. Judges in other counties approve such adoptions as well.

Diane Goodman said that despite Wilson’s action on Saturday, Superior Court judges will retain the final say about whether unmarried people can adopt children. But she called Wilson’s action a “step back.”

“These families exist,” Diane Goodman said. “These children have a right to have the people they call call mommy or daddy have legal parental rights.”

“The people most impacted by his decision will be the least fortunate, the kids,” said Kay Ostberg, deputy director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center. “As a lesbian mom with a 4-year-old, I feel it is a cynical move.”

Ostberg charged that Wilson made the move “to cater to the radical right,” while his appointees in the Department of Social Services who are closest to the situation deemed that it was appropriate to issue the December policy “because they saw the loving households and the quality of the parenting.”

But the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition hailed the action, saying, “It is now a matter of record that Gov. Wilson wants married couples to be favored in adoptions. . . . A child is best raised where there is a father and a mother.”