Adoption by Homosexual Couple

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xformer7 said:
Looking for help to articulate an answer to a question I was asked and did not answer well. Any help appreciated:

My next door neighbors are a same sex couple who have adopted children from “horrible conditions” in China. Would they have been better off remaining in the Chinese system until adulthood?
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Same sex couples advancing gay ‘marriage’ and adoption rights tend to make this kind of argument, putting side by side an example of the better or best case of same sex parenting with the worse / worst scenario of heterosexual parenting. A case in point is the submission of a post regarding a same sex white male couple adopting a black baby from a disadvantaged home environment.

If you were asked and did not give an articulated answer, it’s better to let it go. I doubt that any conversation with your neighbors who already have the child from China would matter. China is clawing its way to world class status with its purchasing power now, but the people are headed for social disaster with millions of marrying-age men with little prospect of finding wives because of one child per family laws and selective abortion of unborn female babies that has been going on since 1978.

To go back to the issue you bring up, however, here is a part of an article by Dale O’Leary that I think is pertinent in case you are again engaged in discussion over it:
Doesn’t everyone have a right to children?
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Persons with SSA are human beings. It is natural for them to want to experience the joy of having children: to love, to nurture, to leave a legacy. There is nothing wrong with a woman wanting to become pregnant and bear a child, or a man wanted to experience the joy of seeing his son grow into manhood or his daughter develop into a beautiful woman.
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But children are not trophies, or a way to meet one’s personal needs, or props to help forward an ideology. People are not a means to an end; they are meant to be loved for their own sake. Therefore no one has a “right” to a child. It is children who have the rights. When circumstances separate a child from one or both biological parents, adults should try to create a situation for him that is as normal as possible. No matter how honourable the intention, no one has the right to compound the tragedy of separation from biological parents by subjecting a child to another sub-optimal situation.
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Activists may claim that couples with SSA are “rescuing” children by adopting them out of poverty or other hard circumstances. Although laudable, this intent does not negate the real problems caused by same-sex parenting: problems deeper and longer-lasting than material deprivation. This argument also loses force when you consider the many roadblocks to adoption faced by stable, well-to-do married couples. Same-sex adoption doesn’t provide more homes for needy children – it just keeps those children away from married couples who would otherwise adopt them.
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Read whole article here.
 
Adoption of children by homosexuals is so morally repulsive and against Church teachings that Catholic adoption agencies in England have closed rather than submit to a change in the law forcing adoption agencies to equally consider homosexuals as adoptive parents.
That is what the position of all Catholics should be or is anyone arguing that the Church has got it wrong in the matter of faith and morals.
 
thistle said:
Adoption of children by homosexuals is so morally repulsive and against Church teachings that Catholic adoption agencies in England have closed rather than submit to a change in the law forcing adoption agencies to equally consider homosexuals as adoptive parents.
That is what the position of all Catholics should be or is anyone arguing that the Church has got it wrong in the matter of faith and morals.
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Thank God for those agencies that are not Catholic and finding homes for all children.
 
Personanongrata said:
Thank God for those agencies that are not Catholic and finding homes for all children.
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Lets see who can answer this question: What percentage of parent-less children are in orphanages in the United States and what percentage of those children are in foster homes with loving families to take care of them in the U.S?
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Go find the answer to this question and you may become enlightened. I’d also add that 60% of adoptions every year are done by foster parents who decide to adopt the kids in their foster care.
 
I’m curious, and I direct this to those who would oppose gay adoption:

Say you have a happily-married couple (male & female). They want to adopt. One has a rare genetic disposition wherein, if they have kids of their own, the kids are 100% likely to have the genetic disposition, so they choose not to have kids of their own. They have been married a while; have no criminal past; would be fine material providers, and are generally pillars of the community and attend Mass weekly.

But they use contraception. They will not change their minds. They insist on using contraception, and and unrepentant in doing so.

Should they be allowed to adopt? Forbidden to do so?
 
thistle said:
The Church cannot err in matters of faith and morals.
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So this is my position and it’s all I need. I was, however, hoping to find a more secular reasoning for those that don’t submit to the magisterium of the Catholic Church.
 
There is a more fundamental issue here. China does not allow homosexual couples to adopt. Any homosexual individual or couple that adopted from China lied to the Chinese government in order to proceed with the adoption.
 
Nate13 said:
Go find the answer to this question and you may become enlightened. I’d also add that 60% of adoptions every year are done by foster parents who decide to adopt the kids in their foster care.
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While your point is valid your information is misleading.

53% of adoptions from the foster care system, counting only those eligible to be adopted are by foster parents … the total figure of foster care adoption in 2010 did not reach 20,000 ---- so the number adopted by foster parents comes no where near being 60% of adoptions.

Unfortunately this figure itself is hardly a ringing endorsement for adoption out of foster where there are estimated to be 800,000 children in the care of state or charitable organisation caring for vulnerable children during the same period 2010.

Of these in the same year only 550,000 were ever put in foster care, short or long term. The rest were in orphanages and other facilities … 😦

Figures were complied by the Children’s Services Department US Government. They are estimates (apart from adoption figures) as children can be moved through the system at different rates, so its difficult to figure out exactly how many through the whole year, based on length of stay, repeat stays etc.
 
essie7777 said:
While your point is valid your information is misleading.

53% of adoptions from the foster care system, counting only those eligible to be adopted are by foster parents … the total figure of foster care adoption in 2010 did not reach 20,000 ---- so the number adopted by foster parents comes no where near being 60% of adoptions.

Unfortunately this figure itself is hardly a ringing endorsement for adoption out of foster where there are estimated to be 800,000 children in the care of state or charitable organisation caring for vulnerable children during the same period 2010.

Of these in the same year only 550,000 were ever put in foster care, short or long term. The rest were in orphanages and other facilities … 😦

Figures were complied by the Children’s Services Department US Government. They are estimates (apart from adoption figures) as children can be moved through the system at different rates, so its difficult to figure out exactly how many through the whole year, based on length of stay, repeat stays etc.
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uh do you have some links to back that up? I was excluding calling children in the foster care system that went back to their birth parents “adoptions”. 60% of the children that get out of foster care return to their parents. 20% are actually “adopted” as you said and out of that number 60% are adopted by foster parents. So foster care parents make up a vast majority of non-relative adoptions.

Here is where I am getting my information: adoptioninstitute.org/FactOverview/foster.html

I have a similar number in terms of how many children are in foster care, but I am finding orphanages are no longer apart of the system. There are some boarding schools supposedly, but the foster care system is the primary system. Please show where you are getting this 800,000 number.

I’d also submit this: online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703510304574626080835477074.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs_comments%3D%26articleTabs%3Darticle
During the past decade I have surveyed more than 2,500 alumni from 15 American orphanages. In two journal articles, I reported the same general conclusion: The orphanage alumni have outpaced their counterparts in the general population often by wide margins in almost all social and economic measures, including educational attainment, income and positive attitude toward life. White orphanage alumni had a 39% higher rate of college graduation than white Americans of the same age, and less than 3% had hostile memories of their orphanage experiences. University of Alabama historian David Beito replicated the study with several hundred alumni from another orphanage, reaching much the same conclusions.
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The orphanages that are still out there are probably there because some prefer that to moving around a lot. Some prefer orphanages to foster care. I believe most children under 10-12 years of age though are kept in the foster care system. Personally I can understand why some kids might prefer orphanages to foster homes. A well run orphanage with good conditions would allow a sense of camaraderie for kids and a sense of stability they would not get jumping around from foster home to foster home.
 
xformer7 said:
Looking for help to articulate an answer to a question I was asked and did not answer well. Any help appreciated:

My next door neighbors are a same sex couple who have adopted children from “horrible conditions” in China. Would they have been better off remaining in the Chinese system until adulthood?
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It’s a false dilemma, often used by proponents of the pro-homosexual lobby (and often used in pro-abortion circles as well). It’s like asking whether or not it is better for a thief to stab you in the knee or shoot you in the chest. Technically, I’d rather be stabbed in the knee, but the best answer is not be accosted, since both situations are morally wrong.

How about decrying both homosexual adoptions and the conditions of child-rearing in China as wrong? Don’t get caught up in arguments between two evil practices to determine which is “less evil,” work to raise the bar to where God intends it to be and choose the truly good path. Eliminate both, and work to have children raised in loving homes by heterosexual, God-loving parents of good moral standing.
 
I think it’s grea that they adopted the child. I think same-sex couples can be excellent parents.
 
He_Man said:
It’s a false dilemma, often used by proponents of the pro-homosexual lobby (and often used in pro-abortion circles as well). It’s like asking whether or not it is better for a thief to stab you in the knee or shoot you in the chest. Technically, I’d rather be stabbed in the knee, but the best answer is not be accosted, since both situations are morally wrong.

How about decrying both homosexual adoptions and the conditions of child-rearing in China as wrong? Don’t get caught up in arguments between two evil practices to determine which is “less evil,” work to raise the bar to where God intends it to be and choose the truly good path. Eliminate both, and work to have children raised in loving homes by heterosexual, God-loving parents of good moral standing.
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I’m confused as to why everyone agrees the Catholic Church has a right to not allow homosexual couples to marry because it believes it is wrong, but it does not have a right to then follow through on that and deny homosexuals the right to adopt within its institutions? Why is one discrimination and the other is not? Either both are discrimination or both are not. And actually it does not even matter whether the state rules its discrimination or not. Did you know that churches in the U.S can refuse to marry interracial couples if they so choose under religious protections? It does not matter whether you think its discrimination or not, a religious organization is protected under the 1st Amendment from doing something that goes against their conscience and the gay couple has many other organizations they can go to if they want to adopt and are actually referred out to those organizations as standard policy by Catholic Charities.
 
It’s suprising in a “Catholic Answers” forum how many folks identify themselves as Catholic and then present a teaching opposed to the Church.

My original post was not a question of what the Church teaches, or whether those in this forum support it, or whether SS couples can be good parents, but rather for assistance in providing a more secular explanation of our Church’s teaching.

(Thank you He Man for Giving me fuel for thought).
 
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