The concept of family shouldn't care about sexual preferences: the gay community's right to adopt

Imagine yourself as a person who has a nice home, a good job, religious faith, and a loving relationship with another person of the same sex. The first three things in the previous sentence would almost indefinitely make you a good prospect to be a parent of an adopted child. These are the main things that adoption agencies look for in a parent’s background. However, the last thing mentioned would (in most states) immediately eliminate you from being able to adopt a child. This angers many people who see themselves as good people who could be good parents to those children who have no families and are up for adoption. Homosexuals argue that parenting is about responsibility and commitment, not sexual orientation. They also argue that legislation has no real reasons behind passing the anti-homosexual adoption law, besides their own personal biases behind homosexuality.

Gay and lesbian people have searched for reasoning behind the law and have only found that there are no REAL reasons. First of all, there have not been any studies done and proved that children of gay or lesbian parents are disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. There is no evidence at all that sexual preference of adults in the home has any detrimental impact on children. Little difference exists in the overall mental health of children raised in homosexual households. And once again, the quality of parenting, not the parents sexual orientation, is the most crucial factor for a child’s healthy growth and development. Homosexuals strongly believe that the anti-homosexual adoption legislation is an attack against gay and lesbian people. But in all reality it is a bigger attack on the behalf of children who have no family or home. They argue that of the 500, 000 children in foster care, 100, 000 of these children are awaiting adoption. And that there are only 20, 000, qualified adoptive parents for these children. The rest of these 500, 000 children are left to suffer without a loving family and parents. They believe that our representatives need to be lifting families and children up-not devising, discriminatory, unconstitutional legislation.

However, there is another side to these arguments. Those who are against homosexual adoption believe that being adopted by parents who are living together as homosexuals, may bring out unrestrained homophobia from the rest of society. This I agree with. I believe that other children who think of their home life to be “ normal” would discriminate against children who lead a different lifestyle. Children can be very harsh with their words and actions against others who know not how to react and defend themselves because they do not know the “ normal” lifestyle in which the other children lead. They would probably be teased and tormented to no end and there is nothing anyone could to about it. If the male and female household has not been the norm for millions of years, this may not propose such a problem. The children may not even be the main problem. It is most likely that parents of male/female relationships would not allow their children to associate with gay or lesbian adopted children, and would probably create a major dispute with the school system in which they are attending school. Those who disagree with homosexual adoption also think that in response to being a child of such a lifestyle, it would encourage the children to be homosexual themselves. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but I do think that because that is all that they know they would most likely turn to a form of it sometime during their life, which would in turn increase the homosexual population. This could also pose a problem for the many people who disagree with homosexuality and it is scary to think of the extremes people may take to rid or exclude this population from their lives.

Think of the times of the Civil War days, when blacks were practically banned from the majority of public places because they were not the majority or the “ normal” color. Could this ever happen to gays and lesbians? This is a question we must ask ourselves. I know there are laws prohibiting such acts, but there are laws discouraging many things that still go on today, like murder, sexual abuse, etc. There is nothing really stopping people from moving out of town, taking their kids out of school, or utilizing the same public places that they share with homosexual people. There are cases where this has already happened. Children have been moved to different schools because parents don’t want their child to be influenced in any way by a homosexual, or even a child of one. There is nothing to stop them from taking such actions or even actions much worse. It is hard to tell the extremes that people may go to in order to carry out their beliefs. I have found several different web-sites that I thought contained a lot of good information on homosexual adoption. First, http://www. homes4kids. org/gay. htm is a web-site that explains some of the problems that gay and lesbian adoptive parents encounter. One of the problems that may be encountered is trying to find an agency that will work with them. A growing number of agencies are accepting applications from gay and lesbian adults, however, when the child to be adopted is a child with special needs. If the homestudy reveals that the applicant will be a good parent, his or her sexual orientation is immaterial. If state law does not prohibit gays and lesbians from adopting, most agencies will be willing to work with you. If you are successful in finding an agency, there are great places where you can find adoption support groups for gay and lesbian adults. One of these places is the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, NAIC.

The address and a little of their information is posted on the web-site mentioned above. Web-sites such as this one are good in my opinion because of the fact that I’m sure that people get down when they are turned away adoption agencies because of their sexual orientation, even though they know they would make fantastic parents and provide greatly for a child. Therefore, support groups may be needed at times to help you to keep your head up and to keep trying until you find someone who can see it from your point of view. They may even be able to point you in the right direction in helping you to find an agency who works well with gays and lesbians wanting to adopt. I think that this is a good site to utilize because like I mentioned before, sometimes we need some assistance when we are trying to make a lifetime decision. People who have experienced such times as we may be going through are often times a lot of help and usually have a lot of information to share. This site was created by the North American Council on Adoptable Children. I think that they are a valuable resource because I’m sure that they have experienced many different situations and know a lot about what the possibilities are of becoming an adoptive parent as a gay or lesbian. I don’t really think that this particular web-site has any downfalls except that the could’ve put a few more links on it to point people to other options if these certain ones aren’t working for them. A quote made by the Council of Adoptable Children that I thought was kind of encouraging for those who wish to adopt was: “ Everyone with the potential to successfully parent a child in foster care or adoption is entitled to a fair and equal consideration regardless of sexual orientation or differing lifestyle or physical appearance.”

The second web-site that I found was http://www. adopting. org/gaystate. html. This particular web-site holds support information on how to go about applying to adopt a child and the assistance programs available to help you do so. It gives specific addresses and states in which adoption agencies accepting applications from gay and/or lesbian couples are located. Some of the states that accept these applications are California, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. It is said that most of the states that allow such adoptions are ones in which the populations are high and numbers of children who need foster care are in the extremes. One of the links included in this site contains local agencies in your area, available searches for birth parents or family, online chats with other homosexual couples looking to adopt a child and adoption resources that are available to assist you in finding an agency or someone who can help you. I think that this web-site could be very helpful in more ways than one. For instance, if you live in Florida, you know right away that that particular state does not allow these adoptions because of the anti-homosexual adoption legislation, so you can look on this web-site to see where it would be possible for you to live and do so. This could make it easier for you to not have to deal with agencies that will reject your application and give you the ability to find a place that won’t. And also you can speak online with others who have possibly gone through the process and maybe they can give you some helpful hints on how to go about it, and maybe even recommend some good people to speak with. The final web-site that I looked into and thought would be a reliable source of information and thought was very interesting was http://www. aclu. org/issues/gay/parent. html. This web-site was created by the ACLU in 1999. It can be very useful in several ways. It gives and overview of legal issues and policies of gay and lesbian parenting. It also gives a few stats such as, 21 states have granted second-parent adoptions to lesbian and gay couples. And 22 states have allowed lesbians and gays to adopt children either through state-run or private adoption agencies.

There is also a part on research that has been done on gay and lesbian parenting. It gives the facts and conclusions of some of the studies that have been done, which I found very interesting. One that surprised me was that there is no evidence to suggest that the children of lesbian and gay parents are less intelligent, suffer from more problems, are less popular, or have lower self esteem than children of heterosexual parents. These three things surprise me because I think of all of the tormenting that has to go on within and outside of the school system and around their peer group. This site also states a few myths v. facts that I thought was neat to include. One example being; Myth: Children need a mother and a father to have proper male and female role models. Fact: Children without homes have neither a mother nor father as role models. And children get their role models from many places besides their homes and parents. These include grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, friends, and neighbors.

In a case-by-case evaluation, trained professionals can ensure that the child to be adopted or placed in foster care is moving into an environment with adequate role models of all types. This site also includes a few examples of other resources that are available such as recent books and articles relating to this subject. I thought that this was the best web-site of all because you know the information in reliable and they have a lot of information to offer. After viewing both sides of the arguments about homosexual adoption I have come to a conclusion for myself. Even though I came into this project with a bias against gay and lesbian adoption, I think that I have become a little more tolerant of it, knowing that there are no significant effects that it will have on a child in such a situation and knowing that children don’t have to face as much prejudice as I thought that they would. I guess since homosexuality continues to grow everyday, it is becoming a little more accepted every day also. ACLU Fact Sheet (http://www. aclu. org/issues/gay/parent. html)

Description: Legal overview of homosexual adoption. Myths v. Facts on gay and lesbians parents. Adoption states (http://www. adopting. org/gaystate. html) Description: Support information on homosexual adoption and states where it is allowed. Homes for Kids (http://www. homes4kids. org/gay. htm) Description: Problems gay and lesbian adoptive parents encounter throughout the process.