In addressing conservatives who oppose gay adoption, I make no appeals to gay rights or the legitimacy of the "homosexual lifestyle" (however you define it). I wouldn't change anybody's mind on those issues, so I'm not going to waste space trying. If gay people have to wait for all of society to accept their choices before they can adopt, both objectives--acceptance and adoption--will be delayed. If gay adoption can be demonstrated socially desirable without forcing everyone to accept homosexuality, both acceptance and adoption will be accelerated.
First, an exercise in cognitive dissonance. If you accept the proposition that people unrepentant for their homosexual practices are sinners--and therefore should not be allowed to adopt, I guess--then surely you disapprove of legal adoption by people who are adulterers, thieves and atheists. (Other examples of people who by these standards should not be allowed to adopt can be found in a well-known open letter to Dr. Laura Schlessinger that circulated the Internet a couple of years ago. Its author cited numerous foods and textiles, regularly enjoyed by today's mainstream churchgoers, that are listed in the Bible as explicitly taboo, as is homosexual practice.)
Second, the notion that children raised by homosexuals will be warped. I do admit, my initial response to the proposition stemmed not from homophobia or any anti-gay bias, but from my knowledge of psychology, which is just enough to be dangerous. Recalling what I could from freshman psych about gender identity and role models, I was concerned about the effects on the child--will the psychological cues for sexual normalcy be distorted? Do we risk screwing up generations of adopted children?
Long before the American Academy of Pediatrics said--and I'm paraphrasing here--"Of course not, you idiot," I looked at what really screws up kids; the sexual orientation of parents has got to be at the very bottom of the list. Examining the home life of an alcoholic's child, it's laughable to be worried about what exposure to a gay person would do. Look at the children of smokers! Family services won't take a kid away for that, and if I were a six-year-old with asthma and chronic bronchitis, you can bet, all other things equal, that I would rather have a non-smoking gay parent than the chimney who gave me the condition in the first place.
If you're worried about the distortion of "normal" perspectives, consider this. A child is going to figure out pretty quickly that most people don't have two mommies or two daddies. On the other hand, it's far too common for a child to grow up thinking that all men hit their wives and children. It takes much longer for a child to figure out that true dysfunctionality, however severe or benign, isn't normal.
A flood of letters to Newsweek included one by a woman outraged at the positive light in which gay parents have been portrayed, especially by their children. She wanted to see a letter from someone who was raised by gay parents and hated it; I assume she sought testimony beyond the tendency of all children to think their parents are weird. That's just it--the letter she was looking for wasn't there. The evidence that gay parents warp their children--the biggest argument against gay adoption--just doesn't exist.
Debunking the normalcy myth leaves us with our third point, the claim that as a society we have a right to determine the "preferable family structure," as a conservative participant in a CNN debate recently asserted. The gentleman's argument rested on, of all things, cognitive dissonance: If we accept gay families, we must accept polygamy, which would just be crazy; the nuclear structure is without question the superlative. Because I am addressing opponents to gay adoption on their own terms, I will not digress into the sheer ludicrousness of the claim that society has a right to organize families. I instead point out that, according to this gentleman's logic, we also should outlaw divorce as well as 20-somethings living at home.
Before you criticize the deviation from the nuclear family, you should examine deviations within the nuclear family. You will find that what's important in a child's surroundings--love, stability, respect--is present in the gay adoption scenario and hardly guaranteed in the traditional one.
Fourth, abortion. Women carrying unwanted children are urged by pro-lifers to consider the "adoption option." Expanding the pool of adoption-eligible parents encourages adoption. Even the most extreme conservative surely cannot argue that a child is better off aborted than adopted by gay parents. If ever a liberal cause could support a conservative goal (reducing the number of abortions), this is one example.
Adopted children are brought into homes where they are desired and anticipated, to parents who are emotionally and financially prepared for children. Even if you have moral objections to homosexuality, you have to admit that parents (no matter the sexual orientation) sin in all kinds of ways, and you have to admit (if you're going to be rational) that the evidence of harm just isn't there. The issue isn't about validating homosexuality so much as it's about placing parentless children into loving, stable homes. It's all about family values.
Emily Streyer Carlisle is a master's student in the Department of Economics and the Health Policy Certificate Program.
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