Gay Adoption Essay

People who oppose gay adoption frame the argument as a choice between gay parents and straight parents, when the choice is between parents and no parents. There are more children waiting than there are homes for children who need homes. How many people do you know who would even consider adopting an older or perhaps an aids infected baby? As shameful as it is to admit, the reality is most people would have no desire to adopt or even foster such a child. These forgotten children desperately need loving homes. Do people honestly think they have the moral right to set rules and regulations on who can and cannot love a child? Gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt because there is too many forgotten children waiting for a place to call home, gay and lesbians are just as capable of parenting as homosexual couples, and if your reasons is that it is not morally correct; let the facts prove you wrong.

Do you know how many forgotten children are lost within our foster care system? Right now, over a million children live in foster care in the United States, and more than hundred thousand foster children await adoption. When these children in the states care max out at age 18, they are kicked out of the system with no family, know where to go, and usually very little life skills to live any sort of quality life. States must recruit parents who want and are capable to foster and adopt these kids. A few states have already restricted gay and lesbians from adoption and several more states are revising their policies to restrict couples from even becoming foster parents. The people who regulate the rules and stipulations for adoption seem to forget the main reason for adoption in the first place, which is to provide these children with a loving home in which they can thrive. Washington State RCW 26.09.002 under Family Law, clearly states any ruling in a court of law addressing family court issues must "first consider what is in the best interest of the child." Although, I refer only to Washington State rules only the "best interest of the child" is the universal standard used in determining child custody issues.

The UCCJA was adopted as law in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands in 1997. Therefore, forbidding gay and lesbian couples from adopting would be denying these forgotten children their constitutional rights. Each year these kids grow older, they have less chance of finding a home with loving parents. Families looking to adopt usually want only the newborn, white healthy, "bouncing" baby girl or boy. The waiting list is long from the time a name is put on a waiting list to baby in arms currently averages 2 to 7 years. The United States adoptions system simply does not work for the majority; such as the child born to a drug-addicted mother, or a baby abandon it's mother who is only surviving to support her habit. Sadly, we have all seen these horrific examples. These little ones are the forgotten children, "the undesirables" one might say. Who is going to love these children?

Most people would never adopt an undesirable child. Then I ask; why not consider allowing gay or lesbian couples to parent? Because, considered unfit to be parents, yet states allow gay and lesbian couples to be foster parents only out of necessity. States have to pay people and it is expensive finding foster parents. Gay and lesbian couples will often foster a child that others would not, such as an HIV positive child. The states even will allow couples to permanently foster a HIV positive child, but not ever adopt that child. These sorts of domiciles hang over these children's head. These children are keenly aware that at any moment the state can swoop in and take them away from the only place they feel is home. They feel threatened and insecure. They want to stay with the only parents they have learned to trust. The people that debate over what is right or wrong for these children have no idea how they are hurting these kids. They forget these children have real needs and emotions that disserve neutering. They are so set on making sure that gay and lesbians are banned so not to destroy traditional family standards.

People try to frame the debate to pitting gay people and people who support equality for gay people against this idealized nation of family. People who want to ban gay and lesbian adoption love to use the phrase "Every child deserves a mother and father!" Yes, that would be nice, if it worked out that way. Sorry to say, it is not working out that way. The fact is there's children saturated in our foster care system. Why are they in foster care? Why are they in the state's care? Is it because their gay parents abandoned and abused them? No, it is because their straight parents abandoned and abuse them! Heterosexual parents have fail most of the kids who are in foster care. How insulting to turn around and say to gays "we will give children to you temporarily, but you cannot adopt, you are gay, you are unfit", unlike the parents these children had to start with.