SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee Walzer

[Lee Walzer is an attorney and writer in Washington, DC. He is the author of "Between Sodom and Eden: A Gay Journey Through Today's Changing Israel" (Columbia University Press 2000), "Gay Rights on Trial: A Reference Handbook" (ABC-CLIO 2002), and the forthcoming "Marriage on Trial: A Reference Handbook" (ABC-CLIO 2005). Eve notes: Because this is a fairly long exchange, which would be hard to read in the usual blogger format, I'm posting it all at once and you read it from top to bottom. This is the first post in the exchange. The last one is by Maggie. Any later posts in this exchange will be posted as they arrive. Sorry for any confusion--I think this is the least confusing way to handle it. --Eve]

Maggie Gallagher's column concerning the Supreme Court's decision not to hear a challenge to Florida's absolute ban against gays adopting reveals a complete misunderstanding of how people adopt and how the system works.

She cites the case of a North Carolina family where social workers apparently decided to place twins with a gay male couple rather than a husband-wife couple who had previously adopted a child previously placed by the birthmother of the twins with them. She decries this "political correctness" and calls for laws that give preferences to married couples in adoption (although she's too polite to call for outright bans on gays or singles, men as well as women).

But it is her conservative political correctness that will deprive many children of a family. The case she cited apparently involved the public adoption system (seeing that it was DSS personnel who made the placement decision); but it is children in the public system who often are much harder to place because of the issues that many of those children have, whether from abuse, bad and/or frequent foster placements, handicaps and, yes, race. Who is stepping up to the plate and adopting many of these kids, who otherwise would never have a family? Gay men and lesbians, as well as singles and others perceived as somehow less ideal as parents by conservatives. It is not as if there are heterosexual married parents being deprived of adopted children because those uppity gays and lesbians (and singles and others) are out to make a political statement by adopting. There are far more children in need of a permanent home than there are parents of whatever relationship constellation or sexuality.

Many, perhaps most, adoptions in this country are either privately arranged through adoption agencies or attorneys, or are from other countries, many of which allow singles to adopt. Happily, Maggie Gallagher's drive to ensure that more children grow up without parents will not reach most adopted children, even if she succeeds in inflicting incalculable harm on the most vulnerable of the children in need of an adoptive family -- those in the public system.
posted by Eve at 2:25 AM VOTE

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