Jay DiCotignano, left, and Jayson DiCotignano hold Danton, their 6-year-old adopted son, as they talk about their experience as gay adoptive parents. Photo by John Locher.

Dadsx2.

It's a signature Jay and Jayson DiCotignano began using on the notes they left for their first adopted son.

The gay couple's succinct moniker sums up what they are to Alex, now 24, who was placed with them as a teenager through Clark County Family Services, and to Danton, 6, who came to them through private adoption: two dads, one family.

"We are both legally parents," said Jay DiCotignano, who has aspired to that role since he was a teenager. "Legally, we are their next of kin."

DiCotignano, 44, is pastor of Holy Innocents American Catholic Church in Las Vegas and an employee of the Clark County Health District. Jayson DiCotignano, his partner of 15 years, is a paralegal.

The two share a last name created from a blend of their mothers' maiden names and have passed it on to their adopted sons.

A common surname is a heritage that most families have, the two said. Because they sometimes come as a surprise to individuals, school officials and medical practitioners, the two men are willing to answer questions that people have about gay adoption and explain how their family came together.

"The one thing we're not willing to do is pretend," Jay DiCotignano said. "I'm not going to say: 'This is my roommate.' ... We're really here. We don't need to pretend to be a family. We really are a family."

Families such as the DiCotignanos soon might become more common in Clark County, where the number of children in need of foster care or adoptive placement is exploding with the population. Locally, there are about 100 children who are legally free for adoption and another 2,000 children in foster care.

Clark County's Department of Family Services is recruiting would-be parents from all parts of the population, including the gay and lesbian community.

In past years, the agency has set up an information table at local gay pride events. Earlier this month, family services took its outreach effort to Neonopolis, where officials answered questions from gay and lesbian individuals considering parenthood. The local gay and lesbian group, We Are Family, sponsored the Nov. 19 event.

"I just firmly believe that any individual who wants to be a parent should have that chance," said Tami Miller, Las Vegas president of We Are Family. "And there are so many kids who need a home."

Like the majority of states, Nevada has no law that explicitly permits or prohibits gay or lesbian individuals from adopting, said Annette Appell, associate dean for clinical studies at UNLV's Boyd School of Law. Only married couples are permitted to adopt a child jointly, she said, but any individual can apply for consideration and adopt a child as a single parent.

There are other avenues, such as the one taken by the DiCotignanos. In 1996, Jay DiCotignano became Alex's first adoptive parent. Later, Jayson DiCotignano did what is called second-parent adoption, a process usually taken by stepparents who want to become legal parents to their spouses' children.

The DiCotignanos performed the process in reverse when they took in Danton, who was adopted through a private New York agency. Jayson, 36, adopted Danton first, with Jay filing later in the second-parent adoption process.

It can triple the costs to go through the process twice, but the two dads said it was important for them to do it. It assures both their children of inheritance rights, and it means that both primary caretakers have the authority to act legally on behalf of the children. The cost can range between $5,000 to $15,000, the DiCotignanos said, with private adoption being the more costly route.

"There are gay and lesbian people who decide not to do this because they can't afford it," Jay DiCotignano said. "We're very blessed that we can be as out as we are, that we aren't poor and that we have supportive families."

Susan Klein-Rothschild, director of county Family Services, said the main criteria her department looks for in prospective foster and adoptive parents are commitment and the ability to provide a nurturing home and a safe environment. Those looking for a healthy infant need to go to private entities, she said. All of the children in the county system bear the scars of some sort of trauma, whether physical abuse or exposure to illegal drugs because their biological parents were users or dealers.

Criminal background checks are performed on all applicants. A felony conviction removes an applicant from consideration.

"We are responsive to everyone who wants to be a foster or adoptive parent," Klein-Rothschild said. "We want to reach out to as many community groups as possible."

Not all people support placing children with gay and lesbian guardians. Richard Ziser, chairman of Nevada Concerned Citizens, successfully lobbied for passage of a constitutional same-sex marriage ban in the Silver State in 2002.

He's aware that gay and lesbian individuals can adopt in Nevada, but he has concerns about the effect on the child.

"I think all the studies show that children do better with a mother and a father in the home," Ziser said. "(Gay adoption) deprives them of either one or the other of those role models."

Klein-Rothschild is concerned that the public outreach efforts her agency is making to the gay and lesbian community might cause a backlash, but she said her main concern is finding homes for all of the children that need them.

Jay and Jayson DiCotignano, who have been foster parents since 1996, said it's too late for society to ask whether gays and lesbians should be parents.

They already are.

Whether it's through surrogacy, in vitro fertilization or adoption, the definition of family already includes them.

"I think a lot of this stuff will wash out in the next decade or so," Jay DiCotignano said. "I really see this as a minority rights issue. You can't deny the rights of a minority for very long."