If there are no statistics to cite, then no one’s opinion is better than anyone else’s - or any worse.
One side is asking to make a large change in adoption policy based on - nothing at all?
“First, do no harm.”
Do you really think it is audacious to ask someone to show why their suggestions will rise at least to that level?
Especially when so much is at stake?
Regards,
Shodan
I agree with Mangetout on this one - adoptions should be done on a case by case basis.
[Hijack]That is also my objection against Canadian Blood Services discriminating against homosexual blood donors. When you’re talking about something like blood-donation, or adoption, you have to look at the individuals involved, not just the nameless, faceless statistics that may or may not describe that person.[/Hijack]
I agree that every adoptive circumstance should be reviewed case-by-case. The authorities should consider who wants to adopt, do they have the means to provide for the child, and what is the status of the child. By this, I siimply mean: There are very few (relatively speaking) newborn, healthy white males available for adoption. I’m not saying these are better, but they are in the highest demand. Followed by newborn, healthy white females, and so on. My husband and I, in a stable, loving, 18-yer relationship, would never qualify to adopt a healthy, newborn white male, because we don’t have enough money, and he is an atheist. Arguing over whether it’s wrong to discriminate against atheists is pointless right now; the fact is, they look at everything!! We would also fail to qualify because we already have 3 healthy kids, and they want to give the adoptive high-demand babies to “perfect, childless couples”. However, we could probably get a 7-year-old Hispanic child if we wanted to. My point is that, the further an applicant falls from the “perfection” scale, the less “desirable” children they have to choose from. Of course, there certainly should be a level of un-desirability beyond which an applicant is totally refused (convicted pedophiles, for example). However, it’s been said before in this thread. There are certainly enough children available for adoption to fill the needs of those who want and deserve to adopt. I include gays, non-married long-term committeds, singles, etc. No one can tell which placements are going to be like something out of a fairy tale, but if the evidence is strong that the child will be loved and provided for, come what may, they are better off being placed than being shuffled from one foster home to another.
That would be the case, if there were no other criteria involved. Once again, I will state that what gay people are asking for is to be evaluated by the same stringent, demanding criteria that straight people are, in order to take part in the privilege of adopting children.
You’re arguing that we should be denied participation in this evaluation process, simply because your perception of society’s perception is that gay people are, as a group, less faithful to each other than heterosexuals. And on that basis, you’re arguing to prevent us from even undergoing the evaluation process which would determine our fitness to serve as parents to a child in need.
Whether or not your contention that gay people tend to be more promiscuous by nature is true, the flighty, fickle gay people will be weeded out in the evaluation process. What will be left is a group of potential parents who are just as dedicated, just as prepared, and just as capable of providing stable home lives to adoptive children as any group of straigh parents who undergo the same selection process.
I don’t advocate placing children in homes which might disintegrate. But I do recognize that what you’re doing by excluding homosexuals from even being considered as adoptive parents is based on nothing but prejudice. Couch it in terms of concern for the children if you like, but you’re denying children the chance at a happy, stable home life, simply because you think gay people are inferior, at least in terms of being able to maintain relationships, to straight people.
I’d like to point out that despite the fact that you imagine that I’m in favor of immediate, broad changes to the adoption laws, my post above indicates that I also believe that having more facts at our disposal before coming to any conclusions is imperative. More test cases, more studies, more statistics; there’s a lot of work to be done if we’re to go about doing this right. Meanwhile, in order to make this process equitable, we really need to get gay marriage ratified in order to have some valid statistics to work with. If your concern is truly for the potential adoptees out there waiting for homes, then you’ll be agitating for gay marriage, and governmet studies of gay relationships, in order to make a large pool of adoptive parents available to children in need in the future.
But, Shodan, are we changing anything…?
In Minnesota, it has never been against any law or policy for gays to adopt (to the best of my knowledge). Its simply been assumed they won’t want to adopt or wouldn’t pass the homestudy.
But they have been adopting in Minnesota for a decade or so. So, here, gay adoption is the status quo. Not allowing gays to adopt would be the change.
Mr Visible or other gay or gay-friendly members lurking here: Have any of you read The Kid, a book about a gay couple’s experiences when they adopted a child? I’ve noted it on the shelf but never had the occasion to buy or borrow and read it. Author is, IIRC, Dan Savage – whoever the author is, was half of the couple adopting.
I suspect there may be comments in that book that would be very germane to the points being discussed here.
And I for one completely understand your point about having a preconception about a “suspect class” exclude you from the evaluation that I think we’re all agreed is appropriate. Shodan, I suspect that the point you are trying to make is being misunderstood and that you’re not advocating a flat-out rejection of any gay person or couple as potential parents on the basis of orientation – my impression is that you’re arguing that from a statistical standpoint it’s less likely that a gay person or couple would work out as a successful parent, and that’s all.
I welcome comments or corrections from both of you, and others.
It usually bothers me when other posters make my points better than I do, but since it is Polycarp, this time I am OK. 
The reason for my reluctance to accept the idea of gay adoption, in part, is the immediacy of the assumption that all resistance to the notion must necessarily be rooted in prejudice. No doubt much of it is, perhaps even on my part.
But if it is assumed that this is so, then it might be assumed that all rejections of individual gay applicants for adoption are based on the same thing. Even for gay persons who, for some other reason than simply being gay, would probably not be good parents. Which could, I fear, lead us down the path of quotas and disparate impact and other kinds of social efforts well removed from the basic idea of “what is best for the child”.
Which leads me to another point.
There is a point on which I think we can all agree. If the evidence shows that placement with a gay couple, even with whatever increased risk of bad outcomes might be associated with that situation, is better than the alternatives, I can see no reason to resist the notion. I don’t want to imply that gays should be considered as second-class parents before the facts are in. But I would agree that being placed with a gay couple, even if there were an increased risk of family break up, is better than the likely greater risk of harm from being shuttled about from one foster home to another.
As norinew mentions, there are children who are harder to place, for a number of reasons. It is important, in my view, to keep in mind that there may be increased risks of poor outcomes for such children, and these poor outcomes are not always the fault of anyone who chooses to adopt such a child.
Clearly a child who becomes eligible for adoption at age five because of an abusive mother is more likely to be harder to place, and even if placed, to experience a different outcome than some infant placed with her parents at a few months of age. And that outcome could well be better than it would have been if the child spent her life in foster care to the age of eighteen.
If gay adoption helps the situation, I can’t imagine why anyone would resist the idea. But I still say if.
Regards,
Shodan
Poly, I’ve read The Kid - three times! There is a copy floating in my car right now.
It is by Dan Savage. Its full title is “The Kid: What Happened When My Boyfriend and I Decided to Get Pregnant.” It is really funny and my favorite adoption book (and the favorite adoption book of most people I know well). But Savage IS a sex advice columnist. And he doesn’t pull any punches. So, it isn’t written to make people who think gay sex is inherently icky feel any better about gay people adopting kids.
He does bring up things that we discuss every time this topic comes up, for instance sex toys. Straight people have sex toys and when they become parents, they box them up and put them in the basement on a high shelf - and that’s what he and Terry did with their sex toys too.
I would note that this is a regionally limited question, even inside the United States.
One of the arguments made against the “Defense of Marriage Act” that was under debate in Massachusetts was that it would be preventing the adopted (or biological) children of gay parents from having the protections given to children in legally bonded marriages (again, adopted or biological). (The Massachusetts DOMA would have not only defined marriage as “one man and one woman in exclusive bond” but would ban the granting of rights/privileges/responsibilities of marriage by any other means.)
It is entirely possible for gay couples in Massachusetts to adopt; it is also moderately common for the biological children of one partner to be adopted by the other, so that the other partner can have some sort of legal rights and responsibilities for said children.
I would like to remind all of you that the possibility of a Gay Divocie is exactly 0%.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!