Gay Adoption and Parentage?

ﾠ

ﾠ

The important question of child-raising came up. Because the issue of gay adoption is in the news and courts these days, I suppose that we should discuss such things publicly, with an eye to protection of children. My thoughts run like this:

1) Many fine people have been raised by single parents. Statistically, however, this isn't the way to bet.

2) There is probably a difference between children raised by widows and widowers, and those raised by divorcees. I have not done research, but I suspect it to be true, as divorce is the result of personal choices, while the death of a partner generally is not. Therefore, I'd be more concerned. Being a divorced father myself, believe me, I've agonized over this.

3) I think there is probably an even larger difference with unmarried mothers. Mother who either had unprotected sex and accidentally got pregnant (lack of judgement and foresight) or, far worse in my opinion, mothers who CHOSE to get pregnant without a man. These I have a real, genuine problem with. Rather than dealing with the personal issues that kept them from being able to form a partnership, they did an end-run and just got pregnant. I've seen some real disasters here (as well as some first-rate kids) and consider this a recipe for disaster, as irresponsible as a man walking away from his children.

4) Gay couples cannot biologically have children. I understand how people could extrapolate this out into assuming that homosexuals should not then be as capable of being parents at all. Add to this the moral judgements and (in my mind) HIGHLY selective reading of the Old Testament to condemn gayness, and it's clear to me where a lot of the suspicion comes from.

ﾠ

My attitude:

a) Homosexuality is natural. I've simply seen too much of such behavior among animals, and very young children, not to think that there is a genetic component. Not all Sociobiological behavior relates to the survival of individuals. Some relates to the survival of groups. In a society where the most powerful alpha males get most of the women, if the beta males can't relate to each other, they either resort to prostitution, or raiding other groups for women. I'm sure that in seraglio situations where dozens of women are held exclusively by a single potentate, the women's ability to be affectionate with each other would be a sanity-saver. Add to this the fact that human beings love and love to be loved, love to touch and hold, and I just don't see much reason to question that this behavior is a positive one.

b) It may be true that, all things being equal, it is better for a child to be raised by a male/female couple than a gay couple. BUT THINGS ARE NEVER EQUAL. No gay couple EVER "accidentally" has a kid. Every kid is wanted, desired, planned for, yearned for. That is a gigantic difference, and MAY even tip the scales toward "on average, gay couples make BETTER parents." Again, this is just a thought experiment. An interesting set of comparisons might be gay parents with, say, adoptive parents or inseminated parents. I really don't know what the numbers are.

c) I've never seen any difference, nor do I know any stats, suggesting that gays are more criminal, violent, or whatever than straights. I believe that gays might make a little more money on average...but it's been a long time since I went looking for those numbers. I do think gay males engage in riskier behaviors than the general population, but to me that's just because men are crazy for sex. Without the balancing energy of the feminine, they go a little nuts. I know of NO real equivilent to the gay bath-houses. People who open heterosexual bathhouses generally go broke. But that's not a problem with gays...that's an issue with men, who often revel in anonymous, instant sex. The balancing thing for women is expressed in one of the funniest jokes I ever heard (and it was a lesbian who told me): "what does a gay woman bring on the second date? A U-Haul."

ﾠ

That's men and women, all right. Just my POV. A child raised by any decent parent, male or female, gay or straight, is going to be better off than a child locked in the Foster Care system. My guess is that two parents, gay or straight, will ON AVERAGE be better off than those raised by single parents, if for no other reason than that raising a child is a hellacious expenditure of energy and resources. Jesus Christ, Jason is a handful!

ﾠ

So, absent some evidence that gays are, outside social judgements, lower in capacity or morality, the only conclusion I can come to is that they have the same right to adopt or have biological children (through insemination, surrogates or whatever) as straights. That the fact that they can't have children in the exact same way as straights is certainly a factor, but I'm not certain that that doesn't actually make them BETTER parents on average--nothing happens by accident. I just don't believe there's a problem here.