Gay Adoption Ban Unfair to Same-sex Couples, Needy Children
Someone could. That’s the problem.
A recent Yahoo! News article stated that 16 states have current legislation in process to ban gay adoptions, a second wave, as they are calling it from a 2004 push to do so. The goal? To get this on the November ’08 ballot. While it seems as if gay marriage was the civil rights movement on the front burner, this issue crept in once again. And, I feel it needs to creep on out.
In 2004, Ohio, Georgia and Kentucky banned gay adoption. By 2008, states like Missouri want to join in on banning loving couples- who physically cannot reproduce, but are emotionally prepared- from being parents. In Mississippi, it is illegal only for gay couples to adopt; gay singles can. So, this means that a single lesbian can adopt a child. But god forbid she falls in love later in life, say when the child is in his or her preteens. Does this mean the child has to go back?
Coming from a mom (mom, I love you) who was married three times before I was 13, I sometimes craved a stable life. While I think being a child of divorce gives me some endearing qualities (that is another article), I often think what a stable home can do for a little boy or little girl. Stable, in my opinion, could mean two parents or caregivers. Four loving arms. Perhaps two incomes and two positive influences. Stable does not have to mean Bush’s idea of a family; mom, dad, kid(s).
This is a stretch, but think about the way gender roles have changed since the days of Donna Reed. (Thank goodness I only share her first name.) Today, both mom and dad can be secretaries. Or say a straight dad is a hairdresser or fashion designer. Does this mean that having a dad with a stereotypically homosexual job makes less of a dad? And, what about straight females who are auto mechanics, laborers and, gasp, CEOs? If having straight parents in fields like this is not a problem, I don’t see how having same-sex parents where there is either a male/female role or a male/male or female/female role. In today’s society, any gender role is deemed acceptable. So, why should it matter when it comes to parenting?
I once knew a man who was raised by his two aunts. They never married and never had children and they lived together- with a little boy. One could argue on the surface that in public, it could look like these two women were lesbians. Sisters even show affection in public. Was this man scarred for life because two females raised him? No. I am no longer in contact with this man, so I do not exactly know the legal details as if only one sister was the legal guardian or not.
A February 20 USA Today article tells the story of two Ohio men who have been together for 25 years- beat that mom. (Again, this could be a whole sociological survey on how heterosexual relationships seem to be more stable and last longerâÂ?¦ uh, even forever, a word us heteros use so lightly.) Harold Birtcher and his partner Thom O’Reilly decided to adopt a child three years ago, but state officials said only one of them could become the legal parent; same-sex partners are barred from joint adoption. Michael, now ten, was beaten and sexually abused by straight parents- and he hadn’t hugged anyone for four years before one of them were able to adopt (read: rescue) him. O’Reilly argued in the article, “Nobody’s stepping up to adopt such hard-to-place children, but they don’t want us to adopt them.”
Birtcher, his partner says added, “Our prisons are full of people who were in foster care, and those people were in, quote unquote, straight family homes. If I can provide a loving, stable home for my little boy, that’s the goal.”
O’Reilly runs a children’s theater company and Birtcher owns a hair salon. This is a couples that is doing far better than some single and married parents, parents that are many times on welfare that we all end up “adopting,” or at least supporting by being taxpayers. For other personal reasons, I have a vendetta against parents- no, I refuse to call them that- child bearing people who cannot support their kids, who drink and inject heroin while they are carrying babies- and they are allowed to reproduce. Again. And again. For this and many other reasons, I find no harm whatsoever in same-sex parents. Someone needs to adopt these children who are placed in foster care because they were taken from their “real” parents. Some states allow it. But, 16 more are fighting against it. Hey, state legislators! You are really fighting against these poor children. That’s who really is losing the battle.
In another February 20 USA Today article, Bill Maier of the conservative group Focus on the Family says, “Children in foster care are already scarred by abuse and neglect. We would want to do everything we could to place them in the optimal home environment.”
Neglect? Hello! That’s just what these conservatives are doing! The North American Council on Adoptable Children says there are about 520,000 children in foster care. Of those, 120,000 are available for adoption. Guess what? Only 50,000 find permanent homes each year.
70,000 kids without parents. Those four words alone are enough an argument. I rest my case.
