A Stitch in Haste

Possibly of interest --

Adoption and Foster Care by Gay and Lesbian Parents
in the United States

by

Gary J. Gates & M.V. Lee Badgett (The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law) and Jennifer Ehrle Macomber & Kate Chambers (The Urban Institute)
An excerpt:

Currently half a million children live in foster care in the United States and more than 100,000 foster children await adoption. States must recruit parents who are interested and able to foster and adopt children. Three states currently restrict GLB individuals or couples from adopting. Several states have or are considering policies that would restrict GLB people from fostering.

Recent government surveys demonstrate that many lesbians and gay men are already raising children, and many more GLB people would like to have children at some point. We estimate that two million GLB people have considered adoption. Since prior research shows that less than one-fifth of adoption agencies attempt to recruit adoptive parents from the GLB community, our findings suggest that GLB people are an underutilized pool of potential adoptive parents.

The three states with restrictions against gay adoption are Florida (no homosexuals whatsoever*), Mississippi (no same-sex couples) and Utah (no unmarried couples regardless of sexual orientation). Only Nebraska forbids gays from serving as foster parents (Utah forbids all unmarried couples).

As I've blogged previously, the anti-gay bigots hit quite a remarkable roadblock when they attempted to bootstrap their string of state constitutional amendments into a push for bans on gay adoption. Score one not only for gays, but for the kids too.

But that doesn't tell the whole story:

However, one third of agencies would reject a gay or lesbian applicant, either because of the religious beliefs guiding the agency, a state law prohibiting placement with GLB parents, or a policy of placing children only with married couples.

Furthermore, the discretionary power of social workers in many agencies probably results in some finding that individual GLB parents are unsuitable because of their sexual orientation, even in the absence of a public prohibition.

Clearly, anti-gay adoption bigotry remains. Moreover, adoption is repeatedly used as a canard by theocrats to assert, falsely, that equal rights for gays "undermines" freedom of religion (even though an adoption agency is not a church).

Meanwhile, the children continue to languish in foster care.

What kind of ignoramus could possibly conclude that life in foster care is better than life with a qualified gay individual or couple? How is that consistent with "Christian" compassion? It boggles the mind.

The full 43-page PDF report is available here.

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(*There is currently a campaign to repeal the "no gays never" adoption policy in Florida.)