Adoption group backs allowing gays to adopt

[struggle4progress]

Friday, March 24, 2006
David Crary
Associated Press

New York - As debate over the issue flares in several states, a major adoption institute says in a new report that it strongly supports the rights of gays and lesbians to adopt, and urges that remaining obstacles be removed.

"Laws and policies that preclude adoption by gay or lesbian parents disadvantage the tens of thousands of children mired in the foster care system who need permanent, loving homes," the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute says in the report to be issued today.

It advises agencies and officials to make firm statements in support of such adoptions, forsaking a "don't ask, don't tell" approach that prompts some gays to feel their chances of adopting hinge on being discreet about their sexual orientation.

Florida is the only state with an outright ban on gay adoption. Mississippi bans gay couples, but not single gays, from adopting; Utah requires adopting parents to be married. <snip>

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1143201442318570.xml&coll=2

[Zenlitened]

1. Excellent news.

:applause:

Also check out the Institute's website:
http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/policy/2006_Expanding_Resources_for_Children.php

Principal findings

-- Against a backdrop of increasing public acceptance, social science research concludes that children reared by gay and lesbian parents fare comparably to those of children raised by heterosexuals on a range of measures of social and psychological adjustment.

-- Studies are increasing in number and rigor, but the body of research on gay/lesbian parents is relatively small and has methodological limitations. Still, virtually every valid study reaches the same conclusion: The children of gays and lesbians adjust positively and their families function well. The limited research on gay/lesbian adoption points in the same direction.

-- Though few states have laws or policies explicitly barring homosexuals from adopting, some individual agencies and workers outside those states discriminate against gay and lesbian applicants based on their own biases or on mistaken beliefs that such prohibitions exist.

-- Laws and policies that preclude adoption by gay or lesbian parents disadvantage the tens of thousands of children mired in the foster care system who need permanent, loving homes.

[CatholicEdHead]

2. I agree, I see no reason why they should not be able to adopt

[joeybee12]

3. If you let people who actually know something make decisions...

...like experts in the adoption field, you'd get rational, humane laws. Instead, we have bigoted, knee-jerk politicians passing worthless pieces of shit they try to call legislation.

[ninkasi]

4. If opponents of gay/lesbian adoption

really cared about children, they would be eager to let gays and lesbians give loving homes to children. The only thing that is different about gay/lesbian couples, as opposed to "straight" couples is the reaction of other people toward them. A gay couple who are very good friends of mine adopted a little boy last year, and their son has flourished under their love and caring for him. He came from a very bad environment, and seeing his progress has been like watching a bud opening to become a flower.

There is absolutely no way that he would have been better off left where he was. The adoption has made his parents and him both so happy, and I, as a friend, have enjoyed watching the new family together. The whole thing about not letting gays or lesbians marry, or adopt kids, is a shameful practice. It basically makes them second class citizens, not entitled to the rights that the rest of us have.

It seems to be a constant struggle to make equal rights a reality. In my almost 63 years of living, I have seen blacks, then women, and now gays and lesbians, have to fight white men in order to share the same rights these men seemed to think were only for them. Enough is enough. We should all be equal in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of our fellow citizens.

[CatholicEdHead]

5. They use lots of sterotypes

They convice themselves that "all gays are molestors". The Catholic Church is doing this among others. That deflection from the phedophile scandle onto all gays is working in their favor.

My ex-girlfriend actually more or less thought this way. She actually got part of her prejudice from Ayn Rand's anti-homosexual rants in her writings, the other part from the RCC.

[ninkasi]

6. In their delusional thinking

they also seem to be convinced that gays and lesbians have some secret plan to "convert" children to homosexuality. They never quite get around to a rational reason why gas or lesbians would do this. Most of my gay friends have endured either having their family not accept them, or finding that there is prejudice against them, or other difficult things. So why would they try to convert other people, especially their loved ones, to the same kind of scorn that fundies heap on gays? That doesn't make any sense at all, but then any and all of these bigoted people rarely do. They find it easier to hate than to accept people for what and who they are.