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, the state chooses to reduce the number of families available, in order to punish gay parents.there are at any one time in Arkansas 3,700 kids needing foster care; there are only 1,000 eligible foster parents.
Why? I thought you were a great believer in Occam's razor: don't multiply entities more than necessary. Why should society burden itself with the self-indulgent, i.e., homosexuals who want to raise children?In a thread on gay marriage, Jordan St. Francis and I found ourselves debating the question of whether adoption by gay and lesbian parents is good or bad for children. This thread is to pursue that discussion, or a related one, whether gay parenting is a good or bad thing.
Why? I thought you were a great believer in Occam's razor: don't multiply entities more than necessary. Why should society burden itself with the self-indulgent, i.e., homosexuals who want to raise children?
You never were much for consistency of thought.
Why? I thought you were a great believer in Occam's razor: don't multiply entities more than necessary. Why should society burden itself with the self-indulgent, i.e., homosexuals who want to raise children?
You never were much for consistency of thought.
CWLA's Standards of Excellence for Adoption Services state, "Applicants should be assessed on the basis of their abilities to successfully parent a child needing family membership and not on their race, ethnicity or culture, income, age, marital status, religion, appearance, differing lifestyles, or sexual orientation." Further, applicants for adoption should be accepted "on the basis of an individual assessment of their capacity to understand and meet the needs of a particular available child at the point of adoption and in the future."
Gay parents were found to be more likely to equally share child care and household duties, and the children of gay partners reported closer relationships to the parent who was not their primary caregiver than did the children of heterosexual couples. "These findings imply that lesbian coparents may enjoy greater parental compatibility and achieve particularly high quality parenting skills, which may help explain the striking findings on parent-child relationships."
American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes that a considerable body of professional literature provides evidence that children with parents who are homosexual can have the same advantages and the same expectations for health, adjustment, and development as can children whose parents are heterosexual.1–9 When 2 adults participate in parenting a child, they and the child deserve the serenity that comes with legal recognition.
research has shown that the adjustment, development, and psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation and that the children of lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those of heterosexual parents to flourish (Patterson, 2004; Perrin, 2002; Stacey & Biblarz, 2001);...the APA opposes any discrimination based on sexual orientation in matters of adoption, child custody and visitation, foster care, and reproductive health services;
State policies should explicitly recognize foster parenting by gays and lesbians, and laws that inhibit or prohibit adoption by non-heterosexual individuals and couples (such as in Florida and Utah) should be rescinded; applicants should be judged on their qualifications, not their sexual orientation.
State laws should serve children's best interests by permitting joint and second-parent adoptions, and all states should give "full faith and credit" to adoptions legally completed in other states, without regard to the marital status or sexual orientation of the adoptive parents.
Agencies should assess their policies and practices to ensure that they are welcoming - in recruitment, training and post-placement services - for all qualified family resources who want to provide homes for children in foster care, including gay/lesbian individuals and couples.
Adopting children in need of parents unburdens society, and the people who do so are hardly self-indulgent.Why? I thought you were a great believer in Occam's razor: don't multiply entities more than necessary. Why should society burden itself with the self-indulgent, i.e., homosexuals who want to raise children?
The probability of being adopted from foster care was low across all state policy categories. According to the model, the chance of adoption for a foster child living in a “gay-friendly” state is almost twice that of a foster child living in an “anti-gay” state.
Summary and Implications
State anti-gay policies are associated with fewer adoptions and a significantly reduced likelihood of children being adopted from foster care. This suggests that state anti-gay adoption policies may work against the Federal priority of adoption from foster care by precluding a population of effective and willing parents from adopting. Potential consequences for moving foster children into permanent homes should be included in debates about gay and lesbian adoption laws and policies.