Adoption by Homosexual Persons

[reggieM]

I think a good portion of the discussions here are based on the idea that in order to be a good Catholic one needs to be a traditionalist.

I think everybody struggles with what it means to be a good Catholic. It becomes a problem when that is defined against what a bad Catholic is. That way, we’d have to build an identity which is in opposition, and seeking an external reference (“we just don’t want to be like them”) that it no Jesus Himself.
I’ve known many, many liberal Catholics and eventually I understood (in my own view) that they’re reacting to something. Like for most of us, it’s an internal drive and liberal Catholicism is the place where they feel they fit. It’s an identity. It’s the same with traditionalism.
I’ve always viewed CAF as being in the middle, but perhaps that’s because my views align closely with that of the founders.

 

[edwest2]

I think a good portion of the discussions here are based on the idea that in order to be a good Catholic one needs to be a traditionalist.

Either one follows Church teaching or one does not, or picks and chooses which teachings to follow. Each of us will be judged by God. Labels don’t apply. Labels are divisive.

Ed

 

[frobert]

Yes, but so far, the population of children raised by homosexual couples is still very small, and it will be a long time before a long-term study can be done.

Not as small as you think.

• An estimated 37% of LGBT identified adults have had a child at some time in their lives.
• An estimated 3 million LGBT Americans have had a child and as many as 6 million American children and adults have an LGBT parent.
• Among those under age 50 who are living alone or with a spouse or partner, nearly half of LGBT women (48%) are raising a child under age 18 along with a fifth of LGBT men (20%).
• More than 125,000 same-sex couple households (19%) include nearly 220,000 children under age 18.
• More than 111,000 same sex couples are raising an estimated 170,000 biological, step, or adopted children.

Source…

What does the scholarly research say about the wellbeing of children with gay or lesbian parents?

Overview: We identified 79 scholarly studies that met our criteria* for adding to knowledge about the wellbeing of children with gay or lesbian parents. Of those studies, 75 concluded that children of gay or lesbian parents fare no worse than other children. While many of the sample sizes were small, and some studies lacked a control group, researchers regard such studies as providing the best available knowledge about child adjustment, and do not view large, representative samples as essential. We identified four studies concluding that children of gay or lesbian parents face added disadvantages. Since all four took their samples from children who endured family break-ups, a cohort known to face added risks, these studies have been criticized by many scholars as unreliable assessments of the wellbeing of LGB-headed households. Taken together, this research forms an overwhelming scholarly consensus, based on over three decades of peer-reviewed research, that having a gay or lesbian parent does not harm children.

[ Selection Methodology * (http://whatweknow.law.columbia.edu/about/selection-methodology/)

Until then, we see that being raised by a homosexual couple is not necessarily perfectly equivalent to being raised by a heterosexual couple, which we could have figured out just by noticing the differences between men and women, and of their parenting styles.

Are you aware that fewer than half of US kids live in a ‘traditional’ family and four-in-ten births occur to women who are single or living with a non-marital partner. [Pew Social Trends](http:// www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/1-the-american-family-today/)

We should not be placing children for whom we are responsible into a situation about which so little is known, and about which we can gather so little information.

We all have our opinions

 

[MaryT777]

Because so few heterosexual married couples are looking to adopt… why place children with a couple that will not be able to provide some of the important things a child needs when there are couples available who will be able to do so? Should agencies not choose the very best couples for the children they are placing?

 

[swanlinnet]

A child placed in a household where men engage in sodomy is a shocking idea. Punitive or otherwise, homosexuals should be marked out for some kind of treatment. The last thing they would need is confirming in their dark ways.

 

[o_mlly]

The CDF document CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION TO UNIONS BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS, as I understand it, requires Catholics to oppose State recognition of homosexual unions and the rights of those in such unions to adopt children.

Is this in fact the current guiding document and understanding on such adoptions rights, and what would be examples of this issue being subsequently addressed by the hierarchy, whether in affirmation or dissent?

I’ve surprisingly not been able to find this much discussed or pronounced upon.

Yes, the CDF document remains the guide to diocesan efforts to protect society from the evils of legal recognition of homosexual marriages. See: usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/discrimination-against-catholic-adoption-services.cfm
usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/index.cfm
Type “state legislation to allow conscience objection to homosexual adoption” into your search engine to obtain a list of proposed or enacted state legislation to empower Catholic Charities to resume adoption services.

 

[Peter_J]

Punitive or otherwise, homosexuals should be marked out for some kind of treatment.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

A child placed in a household where men engage in sodomy is a shocking idea. Punitive or otherwise, homosexuals should be marked out for some kind of treatment. The last thing they would need is confirming in their dark ways.

On another thread, you will find me passionately arguing against normalizing gay parenting. But this is an outrageous thing to say, swanlinnet. Do you not realize that the vast majority of straight couples these days regularly engage in sodomy, of one sort of another? And that not nearly all gay couples engage in the act that I’m sure you must have in mind?

I am actually fine with societies that have deterred homosexual activity in a variety of ways, including legal ways. But your implication that gay people are all about “dark ways” against the shining and holy background of heterosexual goodness and light is absurd. We’re all sinners in need of God’s help.

 

[at9009]

Punitive or otherwise, homosexuals should be marked out for some kind of treatment. The last thing they would need is confirming in their dark ways.

How about explain what you mean by this? I can read the oh so charity in this statement. this pathetic comment by you and others often on these forums is why so many celibate gay/ssa Catholics feel nothing but discouragement and often lose hope and leave the faith. You should be ashamed of yourself, look inward, repent, and actually think about how to support someone in their chastity. Rather than just seeing them as evil bad people you want to ‘mark out’ try seeing them as actual people just for one second as hard and difficult as that would be for your hardened heart.

 

[kozlosap]

On another thread, you will find me passionately arguing against normalizing gay parenting. But this is an outrageous thing to say, swanlinnet. Do you not realize that the vast majority of straight couples these days regularly engage in sodomy, of one sort of another? And that not nearly all gay couples engage in the act that I’m sure you must have in mind?

I am actually fine with societies that have deterred homosexual activity in a variety of ways, including legal ways. But your implication that gay people are all about “dark ways” against the shining and holy background of heterosexual goodness and light is absurd. We’re all sinners in need of God’s help.

Thank you for your very eloquent response. During the last 3 years off my high school teaching career, I had a pair of twins who were born addicted to drugs from their birth mother using while she was pregnant. At age 3 they were adopted by a lesbian. This amazing young woman was a federal attorney who later went into private practice. The twins were so loved and received all of the help they needed with their various learning disabilities. They were very active in their Church of England parish. The twins are now in college, one at UCLA and the other at the Fashion Institute LA. How lucky were those poor little girls who no one wanted except one woman?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Thank you for your very eloquent response. During the last 3 years off my high school teaching career, I had a pair of twins who were born addicted to drugs from their birth mother using while she was pregnant. At age 3 they were adopted by a lesbian. This amazing young woman was a federal attorney who later went into private practice. The twins were so loved and received all of the help they needed with their various learning disabilities. They were very active in their Church of England parish. The twins are now in college, one at UCLA and the other at the Fashion Institute LA. How lucky were those poor little girls who no one wanted except one woman?

This is a case where I have no issue with a gay person adopting whatsoever. I am concerned when people intentionally plan families to be lacking a mother or a father. I am not nearly as concerned when a child is already abandoned, and a gay parent or parents can give them a loving home.

 

[Peter_J]

Originally Posted by swanlinnet
Punitive or otherwise, homosexuals should be marked out for some kind of treatment.

Hopefully this goes without saying, but after this past weekend I think I’d better say it: my post was not intended as agreement with swanlinnet, but rather to help people to know history better. See also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle

 

[Peter_J]

This is a case where I have no issue with a gay person adopting whatsoever. I am concerned when people intentionally plan families to be lacking a mother or a father. I am not nearly as concerned when a child is already abandoned, and a gay parent or parents can give them a loving home.

Exactly.

 

[Rau]

…Is it that a gay couple might expose the child to their love for each other?

No, love is not at all the problem. It’s the same sex sexual relationship that’s the problem. The Philippines govt has taken the view that children or not be taught (by circumstances) that same sex sexual relationships are good.

 

[Rau]

… I am concerned when people intentionally plan families to be lacking a mother or a father. I am not nearly as concerned when a child is already abandoned, and a gay parent or parents can give them a loving home.

I agree the former is the greater concern. But there is no prospect of preventing the former given adoption by same sex couples is welcomed. That would require adopting a position that same sex parenting, while ok, is inferior, meaning SSM is inferior. There is no prospect of that position being upheld in countries that have endorsed SSM.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I agree the former is the greater concern. But there is no prospect of preventing the former given adoption by same sex couples is welcomed. That would require adopting a position that same sex parenting, while ok, is inferior, meaning SSM is inferior. There is no prospect of that position being upheld in countries that have endorsed SSM.

Perhaps. But when what is right and what is feasible conflict, the right remains right.

Here is what I am absolutely convinced of: if single persons, or nuns, the like are allowed to adopt, then gay people will be legally allowed to adopt. Anything else would be discrimination. In an ideal world, I would allow nuns to adopt but not let single persons adopt, and then maybe there would be a shred of principle in not letting gay couples adopt. But if single women can adopt, it is utterly absurd to say that gay couples can’t.

As far as planning goes, single women have pretty much always been allowed to have kids, however bad that is for the kids. I don’t know how one could make laws that gay parents can’t have kids, given that fact. It would be bizarre. But I nevertheless think that it is unkind to the child to bring him or her into the world without a plan for how they have both a fatherly and a motherly influence in the home.

In sum, it’s a moral issue, not a legal one. If we make it a legal issue, we are guaranteed to lose.

 

[Peter_J]

I agree the former is the greater concern. But there is no prospect of preventing the former given adoption by same sex couples is welcomed. That would require adopting a position that same sex parenting, while ok, is inferior, meaning SSM is inferior. There is no prospect of that position being upheld in countries that have endorsed SSM.

I agree that we have little chance of getting a law that says that SSM isn’t valid marriage, but that doesn’t stop us from fighting for our right to believe and teach what we know to be true.

 

[Peter_J]

Perhaps. But when what is right and what is feasible conflict, the right remains right.

Here is what I am absolutely convinced of: if single persons, or nuns, the like are allowed to adopt, then gay people will be legally allowed to adopt. Anything else would be discrimination. In an ideal world, I would allow nuns to adopt but not let single persons adopt, and then maybe there would be a shred of principle in not letting gay couples adopt. But if single women can adopt, it is utterly absurd to say that gay couples can’t.

As far as planning goes, single women have pretty much always been allowed to have kids, however bad that is for the kids. I don’t know how one could make laws that gay parents can’t have kids, given that fact. It would be bizarre. But I nevertheless think that it is unkind to the child to bring him or her into the world without a plan for how they have both a fatherly and a motherly influence in the home.

In sum, it’s a moral issue, not a legal one. If we make it a legal issue, we are guaranteed to lose.

Good post.

I think I’m seeing yet another example of our society getting carried away with equality of the two sexes, whilst conflating equality with sameness: once upon a time most people would have objected to the notion of two men raising a child (even if they weren’t gay) simply on the grounds of a child needing a mother.

 

[Rau]

Perhaps. But when what is right and what is feasible conflict, the right remains right.

Here is what I am absolutely convinced of: if single persons, or nuns, the like are allowed to adopt, then gay people will be legally allowed to adopt. Anything else would be discrimination. In an ideal world, I would allow nuns to adopt but not let single persons adopt, and then maybe there would be a shred of principle in not letting gay couples adopt. But if single women can adopt, it is utterly absurd to say that gay couples can’t.

As far as planning goes, single women have pretty much always been allowed to have kids, however bad that is for the kids. I don’t know how one could make laws that gay parents can’t have kids, given that fact. It would be bizarre. But I nevertheless think that it is unkind to the child to bring him or her into the world without a plan for how they have both a fatherly and a motherly influence in the home.

In sum, it’s a moral issue, not a legal one. If we make it a legal issue, we are guaranteed to lose.

I agree entirely as to the legal practicalities. That really is the point I was making above. When establishing legal principles, implications follow. Legally, marriage is marriage, and so no distinction in rights can be legally made between SSM and other. If a single person can adopt/procure a child, it follows that a gay couple can adopt/procure. If gay persons can marry and adopt / procure children, then it follows that this is a perfectly legally proper way to form a family. It follows that the readers used in preschools and kindergartens should be as open to presenting families based on same sex parents as they are to families based on conventional parenting. It follows that all sorts of conflicts will arise between “non-discrimination” laws and other considerations.

 

[Rau]

I agree that we have little chance of getting a law that says that SSM isn’t valid marriage, but that doesn’t stop us from fighting for our right to believe and teach what we know to be true.

Yes, though “not valid” is not what I said. I said there is no prospect of any acceptance that SSM is inferior. It will not be possible (legally) to make any distinction at all, which naturally creates conflicts between non-discrimination laws and other considerations.