Adoption by homosexual pairs of adults

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tmellin said:
Let’s not send the children of the world into environments that sacrifice the child’s normal development and potential in order to serve the desires of homosexual adults. ** Homosexual people must have the grace to recognize that homosexuality is inherently incompatible with parenthood and human reproduction.**
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I would like very much to focus on a phrase in this last paragraph which betrays your feelings regarding adult couples with same-sex attractions:
tmellin said:
in order to serve the desires of homosexual adults.
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You are claiming that the desire of a homosexual couple to raise children, the desire to be parents, is self-centered and self-serving. This claim is so radical that it is beyond my comprehension – it is completely contradictory to what being a parent is about. Either your understanding of those with same sex attractions is dangerous, or same sex attractions are themselves more dangerous than I can imagine.

My question upon entering this thread, before I’d read your post, was, “What about the interests of the children?” Is it better for them to remain isolated in orphanages, or even worse, murdered while unborn (aka “aborted”), than to be raised by a same-sex couple? The answer is obviously ‘no’ to the latter question, but what of the former?

You have taken things a step futher; you are challenging the very capacity of a same-sex couple to love, and are in fact asserting that they cannot.

Please explain your position to me.
 
ethereality said:
I would like very much to focus on a phrase in this last paragraph which betrays your feelings regarding adult couples with same-sex attractions:

You are claiming that the desire of a homosexual couple to raise children, the desire to be parents, is self-centered and self-serving. This claim is so radical that it is beyond my comprehension – it is completely contradictory to what being a parent is about. Either your understanding of those with same sex attractions is dangerous, or same sex attractions are themselves more dangerous than I can imagine.

My question upon entering this thread, before I’d read your post, was, “What about the interests of the children?” Is it better for them to remain isolated in orphanages, or even worse, murdered while unborn (aka “aborted”), than to be raised by a same-sex couple? The answer is obviously ‘no’ to the latter question, but what of the former?

You have taken things a step futher; you are challenging the very capacity of a same-sex couple to love, and are in fact asserting that they cannot.

Please explain your position to me.
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You have not addressed this to me, but if you don’t mind, I would also like to comment, since I have some related objections to same-sex parenting in particular.

First of all, I resent the implication that most SS couples are spending much energy retrieving unwanted babies in utero. The vast majority, if they want to be parents, are first seeking biological parenthood of some kind, which i.m.o. is perverse – biologically, morally & linguistically. The next segment is seeking to adopt.

Second, the activity of separating a child from the experience of the only two genders that exist in the universe, in order to satisfy a desire to love (even), is, yes, ultimately self-centered. It is putting one’s own needs above the needs of a child to be fully formed.

I certainly would have preferred to remain temporarily isolated in an orphanage until a more appropriate set of parents was available, than to be raised by 2 “Mommies.” I actually had a brief experience in an institution of sorts, as a dependent, and I was surrounded by love there, so not all orphanages are evil.
 
You were in an orphanage and raised by two women?

Yes, I was speaking in an idealized situation … Reality seems to be as you suggest: Most homosexual couples I have seen are not Christian, and morality typically goes out the window; unmarital sex is frequent, abortion is fine, and artificial insemination is great! It seems the common mentality for homosexual couples is like that one pregnant woman claiming to be a pregnant man – what you were born with is utterly insignificant, as is however the child develops.

But, what about a Christian couple? Suppose I find myself in a relationship with another man; we both experience same sex attractions to each other, but we both refrain from sexually abusing ourselves, and live together in a chaste relationship. Wouldn’t it be laudable for us to be placed on an adoption waiting list underneath married couples?
 
Even Rosie Knows Homosexual Adoption Puts Children at Risk

The scientific fact is that children’s health is endangered if they are adopted into households in which the adults — as a direct consequence of their homosexual behavior — experience dramatically higher risks of domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse, life-threatening disease, and premature death by up to 20 years.
  • “The probability of violence occurring in a gay couple is mathematically double the probability of that in a heterosexual couple,” write the editors of the National Gay & Lesbian Domestic Violence Network newsletter.
  • [The Journal of the American Medical Association (http://jama.ama-assn.org/) reports that “people with same-sex sexual behavior are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders” — including bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and anxiety disorders, major depression, and substance abuse.
  • The Medical Institute of Sexual Health reports: “Homosexual men are at significantly increased risk of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, anal cancer, gonorrhea and gastrointestinal infections as a result of their sexual practices. Women who have sex with women are at significantly increased risk of bacterial vaginosis, breast cancer and ovarian cancer than are heterosexual women.” (Executive Summary, “Health Implications Associated with Homosexuality,” 1999)
  • The Institute reports that “significantly higher percentages of homosexual men and women abuse drugs, alcohol and tobacco than do heterosexuals.”
  • Oxford University’s [International Journal of Epidemiology (http://www3.oup.co.uk/jnls/list/ije/edboards/) reports: “Life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men. … Nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years will not reach their 65th birthday.”
    Is it healthy for children to be adopted by adults whose lifestyle is characterized by promiscuity and the medical hazards of multiple sex partners?
  • A homosexual newsmagazine columnist in Detroit last month wrote regarding his partner: “This is his first relationship, so he has not yet been ruined by all the heartache, lies, deceit, and game-playing that are the hallmark of gay relationships. … A study I once read suggested that nine out of 10 gay men cheat on their lovers” [emphasis added].
  • The Centers for Disease Control warns that men who have sex with men “have large numbers of anonymous partners, which can result in rapid, extensive transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.”
    How will being adopted by adults involved in homosexual behavior affect the behavior of children themselves?
  • [Associated Press (http://wire.ap.org/) reported last June that a “new study by two University of Southern California sociologists says children with lesbian or gay parents … are probably *more likely to explore homosexual activity themselves *… (and) grow up to be more open to homoerotic relations.” [emphasis added]
  • A major Australian newspaper reported February 4 on a British sociologist’s review of 144 academic papers on homosexual parenting: “Children raised by gay couples will suffer serious problems in later life, a study into parenting has found. The biggest investigation into same-sex parenting to be published in Europe claims children brought up by gay couples are more likely to experiment with homosexual behavior and be confused about their sexuality.” [emphasis added]
    Which means children adopted by adults involved in homosexual behavior face not only secondhand exposure to the risks of such behavior by their “parents,” but are more likely to suffer firsthand by engaging in the same high-risk behavior themselves.
    Young people who model the homosexual behavior of their adopted “parents” face other risks:
  • [The Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (http://www.jaacap.com/) published a study of 4,000 high school students by Harvard Medical School, which found that “gay-lesbian-bisexual youth report disproportionate risk for a variety of health risk and problem behaviors … [from] engag[ing] in twice the mean number of risk behaviors as did the overall population.” (Garofalo, Robert, et al, “The Association Between Health Risk Behaviors and Sexual Orientation Among a School-based Sample of Adolescents,” [Pediatrics (http://www.pediatrics.org/) 101, no. 5, May 1998: 895-902.)
  • “GLB [gay, lesbian, bisexual] orientation was associated with increased … use of cocaine (and other illegal) drugs. GLB youth were more likely to report using tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine before 13 years of age. Among sexual risk behaviors, sexual intercourse before 13 years of age, sexual intercourse with four or more partners … and sexual contact against one’s will all were associated with GLB orientation.”
    The sheer weight of evidence makes the issue clear: Should children be handed over as trophies to the homosexual “rights” movement — adopting them into households where they’ll face dramatically higher risk of exposure to domestic violence, mental illness, life-threatening disease and premature death? An environment which increases the chances they’ll engage in high-risk homosexual behavior themselves?
 
Same-Sex “Marriage” and Mental Health

A recent meeting of the American Psychiatric Association calling for the legalization of same-sex marriage shows a political agenda that disregards scientific data, says a psychiatrist.
Code: 
	Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons was a major contributor to "Homosexuality and  		Hope," an essay by the Catholic Medical Association, and co-author of  		"Helping Clients Forgive: An Empirical Guide for Resolving Anger and  		Restoring Hope" (American Psychological Association Books, 2000). 
	
	Fitzgibbons shared his views with ZENIT about the APA's definition of  		same-sex marriage as a mental health "need" for the stability of the  		partners and the children they adopt. 
	
	Q: Is the opinion of the APA on same-sex unions and adoption consistent  		with the research on the medical and psychiatric difficulties in those  		with same-sex attractions and on the developmental needs of children? 		
	
	Fitzgibbons: No. The APA has chosen to ignore the significant medical  		research which has documented serious psychiatric and medical illnesses  		associated with those same-sex attractions and behaviors.
 
ethereality, regarding your post #43.
No, I was not raised by 2 women. You must not have read my long post which described my relief at being raised by heterosexual parents whose relationship, while not perfect, provided me a richer & more complete foundation than any “2 Mommies” could have. I was briefly in an institutional setting while still a dependent on my parents. I don’t want to go into details. The point is that not all institutional settings are horrifying or depressing. Therefore, a brief stay in a place like an orphanage is not necessarily the end of the world for a child in line to be adopted.

I thought some time ago about the points you raised about chaste same-gender couples adopting. The point still holds, to some degree. That is, the single-gender/double-dose household still excludes one gender, oversaturates the other gender, and is absent a model of heterosexual love. Unfortunately I do not have citations at my fingertips. However, I have read that straight females, for example, that grow up in households absent of a father, have a rougher time establishing secure romantic relationships because they have zero anchors & models for that. The research backs that up. They tend not to know what to look for in a mate, how to recognize what they don’t want in a mate (another reason that it’s not the end of the world for parents to have imperfect, even very flawed relationships), and, lacking that primal father-daughter “map,” are unsure of how to navigate their feelings in relationships with the opposite sex, particularly when considering serious, committed relationships.

Some people say two of anything (as long as healthy) is better than one. Thus, certainly single Moms can benefit from add’l female support, which reduces isolation for mother & child. On its face, then, ethereality, 2 gay men living in chastity (or 2 lesbians) sounds innocent. The problem is that there will be no dating of the opposite sex during those relationships, so again, no patterning.

So I would think that the order of adoption preference should still be married heterosexuals, then single straight people, then gay couples.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
I certainly would have preferred to remain temporarily isolated in an orphanage until a more appropriate set of parents was available, than to be raised by 2 “Mommies.” I actually had a brief experience in an institution of sorts, as a dependent, and I was surrounded by love there, so not all orphanages are evil.
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Since I’m actually in the process of getting trained to be a foster/adoptive parent (training done; waiting for home study to be finished), I’m pretty well up on what the state wants in an adoptive home. So I can safely say that there are people I know who would never be approved to adopt through DSS, for a variety of reasons.

No, not all orphanages are evil. And I’m glad to see that you came out on the other end of a bad childhood okay. However, many children don’t. Attachment disordered are a serious and common problem for children who are shuffled between caregivers and/or stay in orphanages.

Moreover, we’re not talking about children who are left briefly in care. We’re talking about children who have been waiting for an adoptive home for years. Go online and look at adoptuskids.org. Many of those children have waited for most of their lives; the average stay in foster care is nearly 4 years.

Is it ideal for gay couples to adopt? No. However, it’s just as bad as adopting children to unmarried couples, or single people who engage in premarital sex. Sex outside of marriage is wrong. Period. But heterosexual sex outside of marriage is just as disordered as homosexual sex. So by saying that gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to adopt, you’re also saying that couples living outside of wedlock shouldn’t be able to adopt, either. So Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt shouldn’t have the right to have their children.

If I agree with any law about this, it’s Alabama’s - they won’t adopt children to unmarried couples. At least they’re consistent.

We wish all children were adopted only to loving, two-parent, Catholic homes. But there aren’t enough of them to go around.

BTW, are you a foster or adoptive parent?
 
I would very much rather be adopted by a pair of caring understanding adults than cast out and disowned at the age of 16 by evangelical parents. I met many kids in college who had to move in with friends, or live out of their car, because they were not wanted by their parents anymore once they had come out. Their parents viewed them as a living embodiment of sin (even if they were not sexually active) and kicked them to the street rather than trying to understand anything about their child.
 
Where does it say that heterosexual couples are necessarily evangelicals, and/or intolerant?

So let me get this straight. Here’s the logic on this forum.
Some heterosexual couples are intolerant; therefore, gay couples make preferable adoptive parents.
and,
Some heterosexual couples have troubled marriages (in the subjective view of some here); therefore, couples of the same gender (in which is much, much easier to sustain a relationship, overall) are by definition better choices for adoption.

I guess it never occurs to some of you that many heterosexual couples are loving & tolerant; that many work their brains out achieving a harmonious marriage, often successfully, despite the gender gap.

Presenting either/or extreme arguments is not a rational stand for (or against) a position.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
I guess it never occurs to some of you that many heterosexual couples are loving & tolerant; that many work their brains out achieving a harmonious marriage, often successfully, despite the gender gap.

Presenting either/or extreme arguments is not a rational stand for (or against) a position.
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When did I say homosexual adoption was better? I would ask you to not put words in my mouth, please.

I am merely stating there are situations in which a pair of homosexual parents would be preferred more than heterosexual. This isn’t ‘extreme’. It’s lived by many children every day. Marriage is in shambles in many ways, not just the fact that gay people are around. Gays didn’t force people to get divorced at the drop of a hat, or cheat on their wife/husband, or have children out of wedlock. Heterosexuals did all that on their own.
 
As Catholics, we should love our fellow human beings who happen to be homosexuals. They are just as capable of loving children as heterosexuals. Plenty of heterosexual men and women abuse, rape, and torture their own children… I’d rather see a child in a loving home than in foster care until they turn 18. If that means being raised by homosexuals, then so be it. But the adoption process in this country is made in such a way that it is extremely difficult to adopt, and if there are homosexuals out there willing to provide children a home, then I accept that.

I have not seen any science confirming that homosexuals will raise children to be homosexuals.
 
AaronK88 said:
But the adoption process in this country is made in such a way that it is extremely difficult to adopt,
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The solution is not to shift adoption from heterosexuals to homosexuals. The solution is to change the adoption process to make it easy for heterosexual couples to adopt.
 
pathia said:
When did I say homosexual adoption was better?
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When you said this:
pathia said:
I would very much rather be adopted by a pair of caring understanding adults than cast out and disowned at the age of 16 by evangelical parents.
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That came from out of the blue. It is a ridiculous argument for general acceptance/support for homosexual adoption. You are citing the extreme to support the normative.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
When you said this:

That came from out of the blue. It is a ridiculous argument for general acceptance/support for homosexual adoption. You are citing the extreme to support the normative.
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I am citing my own life.
 
pathia, you are still projecting a single incident & type of incident into a universal policy that goes beyond the incident itself, in scope & applicability.

What happened to you was abuse, & was criminal. For that matter, you could have been straight. Straight children are abused all the time. Straight children receive bad parenting all the time. When the bad parenting rises to the level of neglect, abuse, criminality, that is where the state is supposed to step in. If it doesn’t, the state is not doing its job of protection & rescue.

Plenty of straight parents are compassionate, and do raise, lovingly, gay kids. I just ran into a friend of mine yesterday, at Mass, whose grown son is gay. The Mom is straight & is fully embracing of him. I have another close friend with 2 grown sons; one son is straight, married, with children; the other is gay; she loves both equally. One does NOT need to be gay to parent a gay child positively & completely.

The solution for situations like yours is to have safety nets in place so that abusive or neglectful parents are held accountable for that, and so that there are rescue options in place for anyone of either sexual orientation who is victimized.

The same holds for incest situations, for physical violence directed by straight parents toward straight kids (such as straight girls terrified of reporting a pregnancy to a conservative parent), etc.

Gay adoption is not a panacea for all of society’s ills, such as the high heterosexual divorce rate. Learning how to communicate, learning how to parent, valuing commitment – all aspects that religious organizations & other social organizations can help to provide tools for – these are more permanent & appropriate solutions that address the very ills, crimes, & sins being committed.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
What happened to you was abuse, & was criminal. For that matter, you could have been straight. Straight children are abused all the time. Straight children receive bad parenting all the time. When the bad parenting rises to the level of neglect, abuse, criminality, that is where the state is supposed to step in. If it doesn’t, the state is not doing its job of protection & rescue.
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What happened to me was declared ‘religious freedom’. The government did not wish to step in on what happened in my situation because the church that we went to at the time would have screamed bloody murder about separation of church and state. We lived in a very ‘red’ area and no one was about to tell the church there ‘No, you can’t do that’ because everyone would have been kicked out of office the very next election cycle.

The moment you start telling evangelicals that they can’t chastise/punish/disown/force therapy on their gay children, you’ll have an uproar. Because that’s one of those ‘slippery slopes’.
 
You are incorrect, pathia – in my view, anyway. It may be a slippery slope for the believing evangelicals, but the gov’t sometimes steps in in a variety of religious cases where religious freedom compromises the welfare of a dependent individual. And again, if this has not been corrected, it should be & I would certainly stand behind any such civil attempts. The solution lies in civil recourse, not in gay adoption. Gay adoption remains a controversial, experimental, umbrella “solution” inappropriately suggested for situations not pertaining to the correct care & nurturing of children of any orientation. It is a radical idea fraught with known problems & as-yet not apparent problems because there is insufficient data from the current small pool of subjects, most of whom have not lived through enough life passages to determine the effects of that ‘parenting.’
 
Elizabeth502 said:
You are incorrect, pathia – in my view, anyway. It may be a slippery slope for the believing evangelicals, but the gov’t sometimes steps in in a variety of religious cases where religious freedom compromises the welfare of a dependent individual. And again, if this has not been corrected, it should be & I would certainly stand behind any such civil attempts. The solution lies in civil recourse, not in gay adoption. Gay adoption remains a controversial, experimental, umbrella “solution” inappropriately suggested for situations not pertaining to the correct care & nurturing of children of any orientation. It is a radical idea fraught with known problems & as-yet not apparent problems because there is insufficient data from the current small pool of subjects, most of whom have not lived through enough life passages to determine the effects of that ‘parenting.’
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You also forget, that it applies directly to me. I am gay, but celibate. Should I be forbidden from adopting? It’s something I would very much like to do once I am financially able to support a child.
 
pathia said:
You also forget, that it applies directly to me. I am gay, but celibate. Should I be forbidden from adopting? It’s something I would very much like to do once I am financially able to support a child.
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Please see my other posts on this, citing my reasons.
 
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