Thanks for bringing this up...
This is becoming a very serious issue...
We have not adopted, but we have friends who adopted from Guatemala, and they are in the process of adopting again, this time from Brazil. We all live in St. Louis. As we speak, our governor is in the proccess of banning all same-sex adoptions here in Missouri. I don't know all of the laws in Illinois, but I do know that when our friends were preparing for their Guatemala adoption, they moved across the river to Illinois. I don't think that there are any laws prohibiting same sex couples from adopting in IL. They had to deal with Guatemala's laws regarding this, so only one of them was able to do the initial adoption, and then when they got their son into the states, the other had to file for second parent adoption. Evidently, Brazil has no law against same sex couples adopting. They will both be making the trip to Brazil when there is a child for them.
But here is the thing. These states (like MO) are not only moving to ban same sex adoption, but they are trying to make it so that they don't even have to recognize adoptions that are already final!!
So in my friends' case, the first adoption would be recognized, but if they continue to live here in STL, the partner who second-parent adopted would lose his rights to their son! So if anything happened to his partner, not only would he not have the right to visit him in the hospital, he would lose all rights to his son!!!
This just sickens me...that all of these people preach about "focus on the family" and that type of bologna. But what they really mean is focus on HETEROSEXUAL families...
They are OK with respecting the rights of a single, unwed mother of 6 "OOPS" children who doesn't have a job and lives on our hard-earned tax dollars. But take a loving, caring, hard-working, respectable couple who want a child more than anything in life, and if they happen to be gay or lesbian, then they MUST be filthy, vile, sub-human enough that they're not deserving of a child.
I'm sorry...This just infuriates me....
As for your main question, I think that IL is one of the most liberal states regarding same sex adoption (as of right now). My partner and I are currently trying to conceive, and when we do, we are considering moving across the river ourselves so that it will be easier for my partner to second-parent adopt our child. It's really just a shame that things have to be so difficult. We have actually thought seriously about just filing for citizenship in Canada.
Who knows...all I can say is that we need to fight for our rights before we lose them all...
-Christal