There are currently 107,011 kids in the U.S. foster care system that are hoping and waiting to be adopted, so just imagine how many of those children could be adopted if more lesbian and gay couples were able to adopt. According to lifelong adoption agencies more and more gay and lesbian couples are becoming parents through artificial insemination, a surrogate, or LGBT adoption. It’s hard for same sex couples to adopt because adoption agencies that have religious beliefs against same sex couples reject them, or a state law prohibits same sex parents. Same sex couples face much opposition from a large number of people even though they do not have well supported arguments for their beliefs. Many studies have been done in an attempt to figure out if there truly is a difference in quality between having heterosexual parents as opposed to same sex parents. Despite what many people believe about same sex couples adopting, they too make high quality parents for several reasons (Life Long Adoptions). Gay couples should be able to adopt because the number of children with homes would increase and parentless children would be economically and psychologically better off compared those who are not adopted.
One main reason why same sex couples should be allowed to adopt, without facing discrimination from others with regards to their sexual orientation, is so that more children would be able to have a loving, stable home and an actual family. “The goal of our adoption and foster care system is to provide all children with permanent, stable homes with loving and supportive parents, but discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation hinders that” (Hunt and Krehely). The 14,000 children that do not have a home could have one if it was not fo...
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...and give all of their love to their child. Continuing opposition against same sex couple could lead to bigger problems in the future. People should stop judging others based on their sexual orientation just because they don’t see it as being “normal” because everyone is different and they deserve to be understood.
Works Cited
Chorely, Matt. "Allowing Gay Couples to Adopt Is a Form of Child Abuse." dailymail.co.uk. Mail Online, n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2014.
Hunt, Jerome, and Jeffrey Krehely. "Homosexuals Should Be Allowed to Adopt." Homosexuality. Detroit: Gale, 2013. N. pag. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
Patterson, Charlotte J. "Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents." Curent Direction in Psychological Science 15.5 (2006): n. pag. Print.
Rosman, Elisa. "Adoption by Same Sex Couples Still on the Rise." AdoptiveFamilies.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2014.
Second parent adoption is an important tool utilized by same-sex couples in an effort to protect their parental rights in states where same sex marriage is not recognized. Although gay and lesbian paren...
Bos, H. M., Van Balen, F., & Van den Boom, D. C. (2007). Child adjustment and parenting in planned lesbian-parent families. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 77, 38-48. doi:
Tasker, Fiona. "Same-Sex Parenting and Child Development: Reviewing the Contribution of Parental Gender." Journal of Marriage and Family 72.1 (2010): 35–40.
Tori, DeAngelis. "New data on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Mental Health." www.apa.org/monitor/feb02/newdata.aspx . N.p., 12 february 2002. Web. 9 Apr 2014.
Discrimintaion and equality in society is faced amongst people every day. One certain subject that seems to get most of this attention is whether or not homosexual couples should be able to adopt. Same sex couples should be able to adopt children for many reasons. Children that are raised by same sex parents are predominantly taught to be more open minded, have a greater sense of tolerance, and are thought of to be role models for equality in relationships and life. Most would say that these children will face issues regarding their parents sexual orientation, but this is not so. Children of same sex parents have studied to show very few differences in achievement, mental health, and social function as a child that is raised in a heterosexual household. Same sex parents will allow their child to express themselves through different talents and other attributes that there child seems to be indulged in. These children are often showing more loving, nurturing ,and outgoing behaviors that is exposed to them through gay parenting.
Perrin, Ellen C., and Benjamin S. Siegel. "Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian." Pediatrics 131.4 (2013): 1374-383. PDF file.
In present day, now that racism prejudice and segregation is something that children learn about in history books, there is a new issue surrounding adoption. It is now considered controversial when a couple of one race wishes to adopt a child of another race. Transracial adoption is a topic that must be confronted and dealt with so that all children in need of a permanent home can get the best family possible.
JaeRan, K. (2013, March 5). Report on children adopted by gay and lesbian couples - Stability, Permanency and Adoption Blog. Report on children adopted by gay and lesbian couples - Stability, Permanency and Adoption Blog. Retrieved May 13, 2014, from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cascw/adoption/2013/03/report-on-children-adopted-by-gay-and-lesbian-couples.html
Gay couples should be able to adopt because they deserve to be happy as well as any other person. According to author Pascoe Watson he states “Gay couples will have to prove they have an enduring relationship with the children to know the children will be happy” (Pascoe- Watson, George p. 3). Just like any other person their relationship with their children will mature, and will soon be able to have that love and caring affection, just like any other mother and father would provide to their children. There are a lot of homosexual couples in our society that have managed to win children’s love without having any problems what so ever and remain as one happy family. Homosexuals dream is to form a family just like any other person wishes to have. Furthermore, this shows that gay parents will do the impossible to prove they can build a love and caring relationship.
In recent years, same-sex relationships have become more encompassing in US society. State legislation is changing such as accepting gay marriages, enforcing anti-discrimination laws, and legal gay adoptions; the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is becoming public. Gay-headed families, like heterosexuals, are diverse and varying in different forms. Whether a created family is from previous heterosexual relationships, artificial insemination, or adoption, it deserves the same legal rights heterosexual families enjoy. Full adoption rights needs to be legalized in all states to provide a stable family life for children because sexual orientation does not determine parenting skills, children placed with homosexual parents have better well-being than those in foster care, and there are thousands of children waiting for good homes.
Homosexuality is becoming more and more accepted and integrated into today’s society, however, when it comes to homosexuals establishing families, a problem is posed. In most states, homosexuals can adopt children like any other married or single adult. There are many arguments to this controversial topic; some people believe that it should be legal nationally, while others would prefer that is was banned everywhere, or at least in their individual states. There are logical reasons to allow gays to adopt children, but for some, these reasons are not enough. The main issue really is, what is in the best interest of the child? This type of problem isn’t really one with causes, effects, and solutions, but one with pros and cons. Like any other adoption situation, a parent prove themselves to be responsible and capable enough to raise a child on their own, or with a spouse.
Since the 1970s, studies on the effect of same-sex parenting on children have been conducted in the United States. Sociological debates have occurred from the idea of allowing same-sex couples to parent. Some groups feel that allowing this would undermine the traditional ideology of marriage and skew the perception of gender roles for their children. Sociologists continue to produce empirical research that studies samples of the approximately 125,000 same-sex couples raising nearly 220,000 children and comparing their roles as parents and the adult personalities of their children to children raised by heterosexual couples. Current scientific research comparing the outcomes of children raised by gay or lesbian parents with children of heterosexual parents consistently shows that same-sex parents are just as capable of raising “psychologically healthy and well-adjusted” children as heterosexual parents. Research comparing children raised by same-sex couples and heterosexual couples found no differences in the adjustment or mental health of these children as adults.
There indicators of child developmental outcomes were categorized into parent and child relationship quality, children’s cognitive development, children’s gender role behavior, children’s gender identity, children’s sexual preference, and children’s social and emotional development. There analysis showed that children with same-sex parents fared equally to children raised by heterosexual parents when comparing developmental outcomes. Same-sex parents also reported a significantly better relationship with their children than heterosexual parents, which was measured by the parent or child perception of the quality of their relationship. This goes back to the argument that parent sexuality has no impact on the child but rather the relationship between the parent and the child has is the most impactful. In Crowl, Ahn and Baker (2008) meta-analysis study also found that the parent sexual orientation had no effect on gender identity, cognitive development, psychological adjustment, and sexual
There are many reason why gay adoption is banned and why people object to it. Some people like Bill Maier, a child psychologist working with the conservative Focus on the Family, would say, “Children in foster care ‘are already scarred’ by abuse and neglect, we would want to do everything we could to place them in the optimal home environment” (Watson). Foster children would prefer a loving and nurturing home with a gay couple, rather than move around from foster parent to foster parent. Foster children are often victims of "foster care shuffle." For example, a child can live in twenty different homes before he or she turns eighteen. Anna Freud, a child psychologist, wrote “a child can handle almost anything better than instability”
12 Feb 2014. Ludden, Jennifer. “Can Child Marriages be Stopped?”. npr.com. 25 Nov 2013.