Gay people have been doing "adoption" for years.
the first time I saw it was someone I went to high school with. the kid was pretty much always on his own, because his parents were losers, and he was very streetwise, and had to fend for himself. We ran into him once, and he had a nice car. Naturally, we wondered where it came from, and he said he had a friend that was looking out for him, and even "adopting" him. Of course we thought it was strange, to have someone adopt an 18 year old, but didn't really pry. We went to his house, or actually trailer, and his friend was older, and had a kid. He was very swishy, but we thought nothing of it, because he couldn't be gay, after all he had a kid.
So we're sitting around, smoking pot, and some neighbor, a redneck starts running his mouth, so our friend went out side. Being our friend, we joined him. It ended up being a baseball bat v. pistol standoff. And my friend's new "dad" broke it up by threatening to call the poleeth.
Years later, I ran into someone else, gay, that had an ethnic last name he obviously wasn't born with, and he explained it.
and then looking back, I realized our friend was a homo, and the redneck assumed we were too.
You don't have to take their name, but legally, you're family. And it is a lot harder to undo than a divorce. If it can be undone at all.
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