I didn’t say it was. I don’t think it is. I do think that, ideally, a child benefits from having parents of either gender. They get different things from each parent.
Well, let’s see. Mom married Dad about eleven months before I was born. By the time I was three, they had divorced. My mom remarried pretty quickly and I lived with my mom and stepfather the bulk of the time, spending every second weekend with my Dad and my (eventual) stepmother. Eventually Dad divorced Stepmom and my visits were to his swinging bachelor pad.
My best friend’s father died when she was six. She was raised by her mother, who became borderline mentally ill because the illness that killed her father was so unexpected that it caused her mother to become a raging paranoid hypochondriac.
A former girlfriend was raised by two parents who were and stayed married throughout her childhood, but literally did not speak to one another for a period of about six years beyond “pass the salt,” slept in separate bedrooms, and took separate vacations.
I’m not really sure I understand the concept of a “normal childhood,” and I can’t think of a single person I know who had one.
Do I have you confused with someone else?
Children get different things from two different same-sex parents, since the two people will be different. You know, different people, different influences.
I bet I know what you’re thinking: mommy nurtures the children and brings them french toast, daddy takes the kids to ball games and motivates them to be tough.
Why?
I realize gay people face much more discrimination than left handed people or Browns fans. I thought that was so obvious it didn’t need to be mentioned. But the principle is the same: those things each have impact on a person’s life, how others may treat them, and who is involved in their life, but they don’t impair his or her parenting skills.
Yes, children get different things from each parent. But a child raised by two men, or two women, will still get different things from each parent. Not all men and not all women are the same. And often, the differences between two men may well exceed the differences between a man and a woman.
Or do you favor maximizing the possible different inputs for a child when the adoption decision is made? Should interracial couples get priority? Is it better for the child if one parent is disabled, for example?
Different parental units will contribute different things to the child. I don’t see any reason to presume that the contribution from an MF grouping will automatically be better than that from a MM or FF.
A child isn’t necessarily the product of Browns fans, or left-handed people. He or she is the product of a man and a woman. While I am in favor of gay adoption, I think it is absurd to equate sport team affiliation of handedness with gender.
All this is why I am in favor of gay adoption. That doesn’t mean that one situation could be, on average, better than another. I’m also for foster care, though I don’t think it is as good for a child, on average, as adoption or being in the married household.
What does that have to do with the suitability of adoptive parents?
No, that’s not what I’m thinking. Man and women are different. They are not interchangeable. Most single mothers realize this and try to have a male influence in their child’s life. I was such an influence. additionally, the mother also had many gay friends, but wanted heterosexual men around her child, as well. she also has a gay brother, so there was no bias/icky factor involved.
ONLY, that the ideal situation would involve a man and a woman adopting. Personally, I don’t make big deal of this, except to acknowledge that it is an ideal. If Couple A was gay And Couple B was straight, and all things were equal, I would give the kid to Couple B. But things would never be that equal, I think, so I’d look at all the other stuff much, much more.
I appreciate the realism, but I don’t see the issue. A child gets DNA from a male and a female, therefore a male-female couple is more ideal for parenting than a same-sex couple? That doesn’t follow.
Most single mothers are straight and have other reasons they might want a man in their lives.
Actually…I agree. That’s pretty much what I would say. Except I wouldn’t even bring it up since the magnitude of the ‘gay factor’ is so very low that it is negligible. But yeah. Well put.
Why must you be so reasonable about gay adoption and yet so unreasonable about gay marriage? (that was a rhetorical question)
Sometimes, the greater good matters more.
Hell, I wish it would be possible to steal kids from homophobes and give them to gay couples to raise, then throw it in their face that the kids turned up great.
Stop arguing for our side; you’re making us look bad.
Do you really?
Yikes.
I think the real question is: why are you so able to see reasonableness in one instance and not the others? (Also rhetorical.) 
WOW. So, you’d knowingly put a kid into a less “normal”, less stabilizing situation just in the hopes of being able to make a political point and rub your opponents faces in it.
And here’s your other quote, for reference.
You’ll forgive me if I ignore anything else you say on raising children. I’ll just say that your stance is absolutely disgusting.
On Preview I see that others—even those on your side—have found your position [checks forum] something they’d like to distance themselves from. Thanks goodness.
I’ve heard* that there some children that are more sought candidates for adoptions (i.e. healthy infants) than others. I have also heard* that a child’s race often but not always is a consideration in adoption decisions. As there are more European whites than any other ethnic group in the US, and assuming this group seeks adoption at least at the same rate as other ethnic groups and race is a consideration just as often,** it would seem to follow that there are more potential adoptive parents seeking healthy white infants than other children. I’ve also heard* that potential adoptive parents who do not want to wait for (white) healthy infants, try to adopt the less sought candidates - maybe not white, maybe not healthy, maybe no longer infants. I believe that it is undisputed that there are more children in need of homes than there are homes.
For the sake of argument, let’s concede that there is some consistent, tangible benefit to opposite sexed adoptive parents. A slight edge. Despite that, I would think only the most hardened homophobe would argue that no home is better than a gay home. In other words, gays can be “qualified” as good (i.e. better than an orphanage) adoptive parents (or put conversely, homosexuality does not disqualify one from being a good adoptive parent). So, it would seem any edge would only be relevant where there are too many, otherwise-qualified, potential adoptive parents.
For what groups of children is this already the case (without gay potential adoptive parents) and how do we presently discriminate among candidates for these sought after children (there must be other “edges,” like money, education, etc.)?
If there is one baby and two sets of parents, does the set that earns $250k/ year edge out the set that earns $150/yr)? If not, then why treat this edge any differently?
Either you’re qualified to be an adoptive parent, or your not.*** To do otherwise suggests, based on the above, that there are two standards – one for white children and one for everyone else.
For the record: I am a high-income,**** straight, white, childless-but-trying, married male in by mid-30’s. In other words, I’m just the sort of dude who would stand to benefit from a discriminatory adoption policy, should my seed find no purchase.
- I’ve never verified, so I welcome information.
** I realize this might not be the case, e.g., Maybe more blacks explore adoption or maybe Hispanics are more inclined to base their adoption decision on race. I don’t know and again would welcome information. My guess I thought hat there are more white potential adoptive parents and race is often a adoption consideration.
I wish that every person considering abortion would have the child and give it to a gay or lesbian couple.
That would certainly put a spoke in the wheels of most anti-abortion people.
ETA: My siblings and I were raised by a married couple who abused us in every way possible. My sister the lesbian raised four daughters in her late partner and they all turned out fine, and is busy raising four more with her current partner.
Tell me who had the better parents.
That’s because some people don’t have the guts to admit that social change requires a price.
Tell me how is it any different from the kids above? Acid thrown in their eyes, told not to fight back, an armed escort for what? Fucking math class? Kids are inevitably caught up in the whirlwind of social change.
The people who disagree with me simply think, I suspect, that social equality doesn’t require such harsh measures anymore, and we should spare the kids at every turn. Sorry, but in a broad civil rights context, gays have just as much of a hill to climb as blacks and minorities did. That is why I have no problems with purposefully giving adopted kids to gay couples. I believe gays can be great parents, just like straight people. But social pressures conspire to keep them down, telling them to wait their turn.
If we don’t give kids to gays to prove they can turn out right, how do you convince the homophobes? Gay kids may grow up with abnormal (by society’s standards) parents, but that is all the more convincing when most of them turn out to be perfectly fine.
I’m willing to just accept that most of you suddenly forgot about forced integration, making kids take part in protests, student sit-ins, and the stuff that happened to kids during the 50’s and 60’s. But it’s comparable to the gay rights movement now and completely a worthy goal for kids to be a part of.