Custody Case Tests Indian Law : Courts: The natural father, who is a member of the Pomo tribe, wants his 18-month-old twins to grow up within their culture. The adoptive white parents, who have raised the girls, say bonding is more important.

A dwindling Native American tribe clinging to its culture and two adoptive parents clinging to their children faced off Tuesday in a Monterey Park courtroom in an emotional child custody hearing that promises to become a touch point for debate over adoption, Indian sovereignty and children’s rights.

At stake in a trial that could continue for two weeks is the fate of twin 18-month-old girls, raised by white adoptive parents, but now claimed by a birth father who insists that the bonds of blood and Indian culture should hold sway.

The case of Bridget and Lucy Rost is sure to add fuel to the national discussion over the rights of birth parents versus adoptive ones. It has rallied American Indian activists and children’s advocates, alike. And it already has led to legislation that would weaken the Indian Child Welfare Act, the 1978 law that gives Native American tribes extraordinary powers to prevent their youngest members from being absorbed by the larger culture via adoption.

On Tuesday, Superior Court Judge John Henning gave a preliminary boost to the hopes of the birth parents when he ruled that their 1993 relinquishment of the twin girls was invalid, a finding that cheered the parents and members of the Pomo tribe.

“I’m really happy,” said the birth father, Richard Adams of Long Beach. “I really want my children back. I love them.”

For adoptive parents Jim and Colette Rost of Columbus, Ohio, the ruling merely was further confirmation that they will have to struggle to keep custody of the raven-haired twins they have raised since they were 10 days old. “We are disappointed, but we are still hopeful,” Jim Rost said.

The Rosts are hoping Judge Henning will permit them to argue that the birth parents effectively abandoned the children and to present evidence that the young couple would be unfit parents. That portion of the case is scheduled to continue today.

“People are so tired of seeing adoption end up this way,” said Colette Rost, a 40-year-old medical technician. “What about what is in the best interests of the kids? Who is paying attention to that?”

But members of the birth family say their love of the girls and a desire to restore their heritage should not be underestimated.

“Being Indian is a sense of belonging and a sense of roots,” said the twins’ aunt, Kristine Barrett. “That’s important for a person’s identity and self-esteem. It’s who they are.”

All parties in the dispute agree that the struggle has dragged on too long--leaving the girls in legal limbo as the two sets of parents waged a cross-country war of depositions and legal wrangling.

The adoption had started off with such promise that no one would have anticipated such a bitter feud.

Jim and Colette Rost had a daughter of their own, now 8, but had trouble conceiving a second child and decided to adopt. They pursued an “open” adoption, so they could meet the birth parents and have the option of introducing them to the child later in life.

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Laws in their native Ohio prohibit such adoptions, so they contacted a Los Angeles attorney and were soon introduced to a young unmarried couple, Cindy Ruiz and Richard Adams, who were expecting twins. The two couples met and got along, agreeing to proceed with an adoption that included a $10,000 payment into a trust fund for Ruiz’s expenses. Colette Rost was even in the delivery room when the twins arrived in November, 1993.

Back in Columbus--where 39-year-old Jim works as an engineer for a construction company--the couple said they were settling nicely into their new life. But when Bridget and Lucy were 3 months old, the family received a devastating phone call from the adoption lawyer. Adams, the birth father, wanted to rescind the adoption.

Adams had cited only Irish, German, Welsh and Spanish blood in an adoption form, making no mention of his Indian heritage. But in asserting his claim to his daughters, the unemployed Adams said he was indeed a member of the Dry Creek band of the Pomo tribe. Most of the 275 members of the band make their home around Geyserville in Sonoma County, where the tribe has a 75-acre reservation, or Rancheria.

Adams is about one-sixteenth Pomo, which would make his daughters one-thirty-second, according to the Rosts. Tribal officials decline to discuss such percentages, saying they are the concern of an alien culture.

In any event, Adams’ ancestral ties to the Pomos give him special rights under the Indian Child Welfare Act. The law allows direct blood relatives, or even unrelated members of tribes, the first right to adopt children not wanted by their birth parents. When the law was passed, as much as a third of the nation’s Indian children were being lost to non-Indians through adoption, tribal officials say. They predicted cultural genocide.

The Rosts argue, though, that bonding and commitment should win out over blood and tribe. They say that Adams and Ruiz, who are now married, signed away their claim to their children knowingly and, further, never claimed Indian heritage until they wanted their children back.

“We knew that Native American adoptions were very complex and difficult, and we would have been wary” if the couple knew of the Pomo heritage, Jim Rost said before Tuesday’s court session.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, and we are being punished,” Colette Rost said. “[Adams] lied and did a terrible thing and nobody has apologized or said anything.”

The tribe and the birth father’s lawyer have argued that the Rosts brought much of the heartache on themselves by not relinquishing the children 15 months ago, when the dispute began. But Colette Rost bristles at that.

“What person in their right mind is going to give up babies who they have stayed up all night with and fed and changed and cuddled?” she said. “No way! You are going to fight for the children you love!”

The 23-year-old Adams, now in training for a job as a security guard, would say little. But his lawyer, Leslie Glick, said the young man only denied his native heritage in the original adoption when a lawyer told him it would smooth the way for placing the twins.

“The first and foremost thing is to have the girls reunited with their mother and father,” said the girl’s grandmother, Karen Adams. She said the couple’s two sons, 2 and 4, already go to powwows and know they are Indian. The family is taught about Pomo culture, including a basket-weaving tradition that has made some Pomo creations coveted museum objects.

The grandmother is bitter over having to prove how Indian her family is, to counter arguments by the Rosts. “It’s not how many activities you go to,” Adams said. “It’s something you feel.”

Tribal officials agreed. “It only takes one gene, one piece, to make them Pomo,” said tribal administrator Marcellena Becerra. “We don’t want to lose a single one of our children. They are our heart and soul.”

The Rosts, however, are hoping to introduce evidence that Richard Adams and Cindy Ruiz are unfit parents.

Among the documents they have obtained is a copy of a restraining order that Cindy filed against Richard last year. In it, Ruiz told a court that she had been subjected to “extreme violence” by Adams, including hitting and kicking. She also told a court, which granted the restraining order, that the couple’s two boys had been choked, shaken, dropped and otherwise abused. Police were called to the couple’s home at least twice because of domestic violence, other records show.

But Glick said Tuesday that Ruiz since has conceded that she made the claims of violence because a women’s shelter required them before admitting her. “They are just using this information to try to dirty up these people for their own purposes,” the attorney said.

The Rosts also have taken their fight to Congress, where their representative has introduced a bill in the House that would limit the ability of tribes to claim children after they have been adopted.

“There is no question there have been abuses of ICWA,” said Rep. Deborah D. Pryce (R-Ohio), whose bill would force parents to state their children’s Indian lineage at the time of birth to obtain the protection of federal law. Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) is carrying a companion bill in the Senate.

Indian organizations are fighting the changes. “The proposed amendments represent a significant assault on the sovereignty of Indian tribes and will put hundreds of Indian children in jeopardy of losing their families,” said Terry L. Cross, executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Assn.

Times staff writer Jeff Leeds contributed to this story.