Just a question, not trying to rehash the debate on whether these should be allowed.
I believe these should absolutely be allowed, but was asked if I thought they should be limited to children old enough to understand the situation and be accepting of it, and am unsure of my view on this. Has anyone thought this through? What do you think?
My own view is that it shouldn’t be limited by the child’s age.
It should be limited by the coparents being able to take care of a kid. But the limit proposed is the kind that can really screw up many honest-but-not-too-sparky people while leaving huge loopholes. You know, sort of like Brad Pitt+Angelina Jolie not being able to adopt a kid together in origin because the kid’s country of origin allows adoption by single people but not by unmarried couples: since they have the brains and money for it, all it’s done is turn the process into a two-step one. If you allow adoption of a kid of any age by “a single parent of any gender”, but not by two same-gender parents until the kid is deemed “old enough,” those with the moolah will make it two-step and those without are screwed.
Making enough money to pay the lawyers twice shouldn’t be a criterion for adoption, imo.
I’m not sure there should be a rule for such things - I think it’s much better left to the discretion of the agencies involved, who should have the power (and discretion, and sense) to be able to place children with adoptive parents on the basis of their likely competence in the role.
You say you think these adoptions should “absolutely” be allowed, but then in a sense you contradict yourself. It is as if you are saying that a “special” limitation has to be put on same-sex couples, and I wonder what repressed quasi-homophobic sentiments are hidden under that reservation. Even if you are NOT homophobic as such.
But the fact is that many babies and children under the age of reason are adopted by people that some other people disapprove of. Gay couples are but one example. What about a gay kid (many experts agree that sexual preferences are established quite early, or perhaps we are born with them) who is adopted by Christian Fundies, Conservative Catholics, Muslims, etc. Is that kid going to have a happy life?
What about single parents who adopt? Should we wait until the kid is old enough to ask him or her if they want to be raised without a daddy/mommy?
Should we wait 10 years to ask white and black kids if they accept being adopted by couples of a different race? Or by a bi-racial couple?
What about all the little Chinese girls being adopted into the west? Is anyone asking them if they want to grow up as a visible minority in countries whre they will probably lose 90% of their Chinese heritage? Admittedly, these children are far better off economically, but then again many same-sex couples can offer a child a great deal economically.
If your argument is that you are just thinking about the kids’ welfare by protecting them from homophobic discrimination, fine. But then apply that principle to the racial situations I have just mentioned.
For that matter, there is still a lot of anti-semitism out there. Should a Jewish couple be allowed to adopt a gentile baby without the kid being old enough to decide if he wants to become a member of a religious/ethnic group that has been slaughtered in the millions in living memory and that is still subject to horrid discrimination and attacks in many parts of the world?
Having said that, I DO agree with you on one point. Certainly a child of 10 or even seven should have something to say about adoptive parents, and even a sort of right of veto.
As far as I am concerned, if a kid who seems to understand the situation says he does NOT want to be adopted by a same-sex couple, or a couple of a different race, or a single parent, or Christian Fundies or Jews or whatever, even if the reluctance is based on nothing but pure bigotry, we MUST respect that and give him the right to refuse.
Valteron, my post was not just about gay couples, I wonder too as you said, about interracial couples, or a black couple adopting a white kid- anything that may be seen as “different”, which may include a morbidly obese parent- anything that may cause uncommon problems for the child later in life. Some children can handle anything- some can’t. Some may defend their same sex parents to playground taunts, others may resent them for it.
Thus my question- to imply underlying homophobia in my question is bizarre, when I clearly state in the OP I am totally for it (and gay rights, marraige, life insuarance for partner, all that). I asked becasue this is a subject I would like to see other opinions on, to then form my own, becasue when I was asked this by someone, I had not ever thought about that aspect, and the possible ramifications. No hidden anti-gay agenda here my friend.
If children should only be raised by straight couples, should only straight couples raise children? If a member of a couple dies, should any children be taken away and given to a straight couple. Should all the babies of pregnant 9/11 widows have been ripped from their arms to go to straight couples.
Young children don’t understand the concept of straight couples. Their family is anyone who can raise them, and sexuality does not enter into it. I was raised by a straight, extremely abusive couple. My sister the lesbian has raised six children successfully. I wish I’d been in HER family.
Since it’s been proved that being raised by loving parent(s) from a young age is better than spending your earliest years institutionalized, the notion of “retaining” kids out of adoption “until they’re old enough to choose” seems to go very much against the whole idea of benefitting the kid by giving him loving, capable parent(s). Methinks.
Otherwise, gee, maybe we should all get raised at communitary cradlehouses! It’s a brave new world!
I sincerely do not believe you are homophobic. But your post and its title do seem to imply that a special case should be made for same-sex couples by waiitng until the kid is old enough to exercise a right of refusal, in case he has problems. It is the IDEA that I see as having an underlying homophobia, not you.
You did not say you would apply that to all other cases where the parents were not Ozzie and Harriet adopting a white kid.
If you would like a rule that ALL couples whose kids might be subject to discrimination have to wait until the kid is old enough to exercise a right of refusal, then you can propose one, I suppose.
And as I stress, I accept the right of refusal of an older kid, even if he says “I’m not moving in with a pair of fucking homos (or fucking niggers, or fucking kykes or fucking lard-asses)!” No matter how bigoted we may think the kid is being, an older child should have a pretty much absolute right to veto any proposed adoption.
But you would have to include obese parents, as you say, as well as racially-mixed couples or couples of a different colour than the child, or any number of things.
Do we let a couple who are blue-black adopt a white-hired blond baby? Or a white couple adopt a black baby? Do we know if the kid will mind the fact that all his life, stupid people will say: “Oh, you’re adopted!” (well, duh :rolleyes: ).
Then again, should it depend also on the area of the country or the world? In my Quebec, where over 80% of the population is in favour of gay marriage, being raised by a gay couple would expose the child to far less discrimination than a kid raised by the same couple in a small town in the Bible belt of the US South, I would suspect.
Valteron, bascially what I should have said in the OP is “Hmm…I don’t know how I feel about this, what do you guys think”, and agree the phrasing of the OP could have been better. 
I was just “thinking about the children!!”. My own personal similar experience is I often take a friends kid to the park, and the kid is of a different race than me, and she is always inundated with questions about me, who I am, am I her father, etc- the kids even ask me that. And I can see at the age she is now she doesn’t register why the questioning or what the real meaning is, but I would hate to later on subject her to unwanted attention because of me, unless she was Ok with it.
Nah. As the old saying goes, you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your relatives. 
I’ve never heard of a kid disapproving of their being adopted by a same sex couple. Love is love. Family is family.
Dos anyone have anecdotal evidence of a kid who was pissed off that his parents were same sex?
I think there are studies that show kids adopted by same-sex are more tolerant of gays and aren’t harmed by being put in a “not normal” situation. They should be allowed to adopt without any unusual restrictions. If they grow up and disapprove of their parents - hey, that happens to straight couples too.
Sure. Children that are about to be adopted need to be told that these are not their biological parents but they may love them just as much or more. Do you understand that?
The only thing I want to add to this debate is that if an adoption agency is affiliated with a church or religious movement, they should have full freedom to conduct adoptions as they see fit, according to the beliefs and dictates of their faith.
I realize fully that this will indeed lead to instances where these agencies engage in behavior that could be described as discriminatory. So long as there are public and other private agencies available that do not behave in this manner, I believe such conduct can be accommodated, and the First Amendment rights of these churches upheld.
I think you’re a little too optimistic here. Maybe 80% of us favour same-sex marriage (although if you had a cite for this I’d like to see it, it does seem a bit high given that we’re not without our share of homophobia), but kids are kids, and homosexuality is still seen as outside enough of the norm that I have no problem imagining a child of same-sex parents, even here, being discriminated against. (Or mocked by his/her peers, but of course, kids will mock other kids for anything. :p)
This said, I’m totally for same-sex adoption, and I think that if we decide that we should wait for the child to be able to decide whether he/she wants to be adopted by a same-sex couple, we should just forbid it entirely, because it defeats the whole purpose of trying to find adoptive parents as soon as possible.
The 80% for gay marrige in Quebec was from a poll a couple of years ago. I may have the figures wrong, but it was a huge majority. I also said the kids of a Quebec same-sex couple would be subject to less discrimination than kids of the same couple in some small, Bible-thumping town in rural Texas, say.
I did not say they would be subject to absolutely NO discrimination or taunting.
Anyone who puts religion above the best interest of the child ought not be in the business of distribution babies. What about the first amendment rights of the children?
I would agree with the right of religions to discriminate depending on how they came by the control of these children to be adopted. If the birth parent(s) expressed a specific desire to have the child adopted only by people of a specific religion, I assume we would have to respect those rights. But what about a person who insisted that their biological child be adopted only by members of a specific race? Of a specific ethnic group?
Why does religion always get this “benefit of clergy”? 
I agree with you entirely, provided the adoption agency in question does not receive any federal aid. If they’re getting any subsidies from the state, they have to play by the state’s rules.
They would tend to see the two things as dovetailing, naturally. The example I had foremost in my mind, of course, was Catholic Charities.
I understand your post, but don’t get the relationship to the post of mine you quoted.