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If I read it correctly, they had her for a couple years from birth, then he's had her for a couple years, and they have been fighting the entire time. It sounded to me like he was trying to exercise his parental rights from the get-go. At least from the point in time that he knew about the child - which may not have been immediately due to no fault of his own. I don't get the impression that he ever abandoned his daughter, and then returned to claim her after some time had elapsed. Frankly, I would have erred on giving him custody, assuming he isn't a complete incompetent. And I'd find it hard to believe that someone fighting that hard for his kid would be an incompetent father. It sounded like the adoptives argued that "federal law does not define an unwed biological father as a parent." We men should find that offensive on its face. It seems to imply that an unwed mother can put a kid up for adoption without the father's input, thereby taking away any rights. But if she wants to keep the kid, he would surely be responsible for child support. Responsibility without rights is patently unjust. Put another way: how hard would the court have laughed at him if the mother sued him for child support and he claimed that he wasn't a parent, that he was merely an unwed biological father?
That wasn't in the recent article, but would clearly color my view of the situation.
