LAS VEGAS (AP) – Jay and Jayson DiCotignano began using the signature “Dadsx2” on 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 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 a Clark County Health District employee. 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.

Because having the same surname sometimes surprises 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. “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 available for adoption and another 2,000 in foster care. Clark County’s Department of Family Services is recruiting would-be parents from all parts of the population, including gay and lesbian communities.

“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, a local gay and lesbian group. “And there are so many kids who need a home.”

Like most states, Nevada has no law explicitly permitting or prohibiting 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.

The DiCotignanos took another avenue. In 1996, Jay DiCotignano became Alex’s first adoptive parent. Later, Jayson DiCotignano completed a second-parent adoption, a process stepparents can take to become legal guardians of their spouses’ children.

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

Susan Klein-Rothschild, director of county Family Services, said her department looks most for commitment and the ability for prospective foster and adoptive parents to provide a nurturing home and a safe environment.

Applicants undergo criminal background checks, and are removed from consideration if they have felony convictions.

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

He said he has concerns about the effect of same-sex parents 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.”

Jay and Jayson DiCotignano said it was too late for society to ask whether gay and lesbian partners should be parents.

“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.”