JFCS honors gay dad - Bay area Jewish Family and Children Services
by Heather Tirado Gilligan
Charlie Spiegel accepts his Fammy Award at JFCS’ 25th annual gala. Photo: Drew Altizer
Gay adoption lawyer Charlie Spiegel was honored for his 20 years of service to LGBT families at the Jewish Family and Children Service’s 25th annual gala and fundraiser March 7. Spiegel’s work was recognized with a Fammy Award from the agency, which also helped him adopt his own daughter in 1997.
Spiegel has volunteered with Adoption Connection at the JFCS since he adopted his daughter Nora, now aged 12. Spiegel began his career as a real estate lawyer; in 2008 he joined Adams and Romer, a practice specializing in adoption law, where he now guides same-sex couples through the adoption process.
Spiegel sees his legal work as a way to help the larger LGBT civil rights struggle, as well as a way to assist individual families. He noted that agencies like Adoption Connection, which treat LGBT couples as they do straight couples, are key players in the civil rights movement.
"Very early on JFCS put their seal of approval on gay male families," Spiegel explained in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter at the JFCS event, which took place at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco.
In the video introduction that preceded his award, Spiegel, 50, recalled his sadness at his sense that he would never be a parent after he came out as a young adult.