Loving couple. Loving home. Steady jobs. No criminal history. Kids like them and the birth mother wants it.

Despite all that, Michael Gregg Valdez and Michael Oberg are wading upriver through the state child protection system to be able to take care of four kids belonging to Valdez's niece. The two Salem men say it's because they're gay.

"They'd rather pull them out of a loving, caring home and put them into a foster home," Valdez said. "You walk into our house without anybody here and it's going to be like any other house."

To the state, it's a simple matter of the law, which says that to adopt or be a foster parent, you must be legally married or single and not cohabitating. Officials asked for clarification of a judge's directive that Valdez have custody of the children, requesting that the court take custody or grant custody to the state's Division of Child and Family Services. On Friday, the courts took custody, then turned around and granted Valez temporary custody of the children.

"The judge said, 'I see absolutely no reason why the kids can't stay where they're at,'" Valdez said.

The two men, both natives of Utah County, said they would love to get married, but voters passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

The two were surprised three weeks ago when the children's birth mother asked them to take care of her children while she dealt with drug-related criminal matters. It was no small task, but they wanted to help, said Oberg. The kids are ages 11, 6 and 2 years, and 10 months. The children's fathers aren't able to take them, at least not now.

"It was very difficult to get it going. But we've got the kids situated now. They're comfortable. They're happy," Oberg said.

The children aren't strangers to DCFS, as the mother has a history of drug problems. But DCFS has worked to keep the kids with their mother when possible, Valdez said, and was even supportive of the men's efforts, until one of the division lawyers said the men had to sign over the children.

"They've been through enough without having been split up," Valdez said. "That's the major thing, the reason I've agreed to do this for her."

Finding a foster family to take in four kids isn't easy, though the state's goal is to always keep siblings together, said Martie Shannon, DCFS adoption program manager, adding that DCFS doesn't speak about specific cases because of privacy issues.

"It just depends on the timing of who is available," she said.

For now Valdez and Oberg are available and willing.

"I guess we let DCFS and the drug court decide if the mother follows the orders of the court or not," Valdez said.

If she doesn't, then the adoption/foster issue comes back into play, and the roller coaster begins afresh.

"I guess we'll just cross that bridge if and when it comes," he said.

There are only three states that have outright bans on homosexual parents: Florida, Mississippi and Utah, though Utah's is tied to the cohabitation rule and not expressly against homosexuals. In fact, people who are gay could adopt or be a foster parent, as long as they aren't living with a partner, Shannon said.

Gabrielle Valdez, Michael's 17-year-old biological daughter, said Friday that their home is like any other, complete with family dinners, concerns over school work and regular jobs.

"I'm not really too worried. They're doing it for the kids. They're not doing it for anything else."