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Should gay couples be allowed to raise adopted children?

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zomg gay is contagious

better go get a blood test to make sure i'm not betraying our national duty to have lots of kids

Reply 81

gurk

Put yourself in the child's position - would you like to be raised by a gay couple?

I doubt anybody here could honestly answer that they would prefer to be raised by a gay couple than a normal one.

Reply 82

fivebyfive

gurk

Put yourself in the child's position - would you like to be raised by a gay couple?

I doubt anybody here could honestly answer that they would prefer to be raised by a gay couple than a normal one.

Life is never perfect, we don't always get what we want. Am sure many gay couples could do a great job at raising kids.

Some of the people i see in everyday life don't appear to give a crap about their children. If gay couples are going to go through all the hassel of the adoption and get the go ahead from adoption agency then they are prob going to do a damn good job at raising a kid. I don't really see any reason why gay couples should not be able to adopt when there are so many unwanted children in the world.

Reply 83

Psyk

gurk

I doubt anybody here could honestly answer that they would prefer to be raised by a gay couple than a normal one.

Quite possibly true, but would someone raised by a gay couple say they would prefer to have been raised by a straight couple?

Reply 84

Zoecb

gurk

Put yourself in the child's position - would you like to be raised by a gay couple?

I doubt anybody here could honestly answer that they would prefer to be raised by a gay couple than a normal one.

I could, thanks. Gay parents would be awesome. Pretty much guaranteed non-bigoted parents, there's a headstart in life right there.

Reply 85

Psyk

Zoecb

I could, thanks. Gay parents would be awesome. Pretty much guaranteed non-bigoted parents, there's a headstart in life right there.

Haha gay people can still be a little bigoted :p:

Reply 86

silent

I doubt that one can say gay parents are definitely not bigoted. :rolleyes:

Reply 87

Zoecb

MSD

I doubt that one can say gay parents are definitely not bigoted. :rolleyes:

Well duh, that's why I said 'pretty much', not '100%'.

Reply 88

Jonatan

Zoecb

I could, thanks. Gay parents would be awesome. Pretty much guaranteed non-bigoted parents, there's a headstart in life right there.

As a bisexual I can testify that there is quite a few gay people who are bigoted in one way or another. Apparently there is very few people who manage to follow the trail of thought that "If it can happen to them, similar things can happen to me."

Quite a few people don't realise it, but the vast majority of people belong to one minority or another. Simply your gender instantly puts you at about 50% of the population, and the more specific you get the smaller the number of people in the same box as you becomes:

Given your gender, nationality, and sexual orientation it is possible to eliminate 99% of the worlds population.

Add in age, eye colour, and religion and you are down at 0.03% of the population.

Knowing 30 properties about you will on average pin you down to within 6 people, and 60 properties makes the chance that someone else has that same set of those properties about 1 against 160 million.

So there you go. Take a paper and write down 60 things about yourself. That is enough information to determine exactly who you are within a probability of 1 in a billion of getting it wrong.

Reply 89

Jonatan

gurk

Put yourself in the child's position - would you like to be raised by a gay couple?

I doubt anybody here could honestly answer that they would prefer to be raised by a gay couple than a normal one.

Sure, so lets ban gays from adopting, people on low income, those who are not particularly intelligent, obese people, smokers, immigrants.... etc....

And oh look, eventually we have no adoptive parents and we will have to leave the kids to themselves...

At least think a bit before you make choices based on silly assumptions.

Reply 90

I_am_the_mob

I think it is absolutely fine if the children are in a stable, loving environment
I think the worst thing for children is a bad environment, regardless of who is bringing them up

Reply 91

Arminius

I have no problem with the idea that "a gay parent is better than no parent".

But as soon as you say "gays can adopt" then is it still acceptable to say "normal couples first, gay couples second?" i would presume not in todays politically correct society but IMO childrens wellfare would be best preserved with the following logic.

Biological parents > Adopting normal parents > adopting gay parents > no parents.

Reply 92

Rachie89

Zebedee

Its straight. Not normal. Unless gay people are abnormal.

And I personally wouldn't mind gay parents. I don't mind, that as far as I know, my parents are straight. I know people with gay parents, and they were raised in a loving home.

To me, it should only matter that the child is in a loving/ caring home, is getting fed etc. It shouldn't matter what the sexuality of the parents are.

Reply 93

Psyk

Zebedee

I sort of agree. The child's welfare should come above all else. For example if there were two couples one gay, one straight but apart from that they were both equal (similar income, all good people, etc.) then I think the straight couple should get the child. With a straight couple there is a higher probability that the child will encounter fewer problems in their life, even though that's probably only down to the possibility of them getting bullied for having gay parents. If homophobia was eradicated then it would make no difference, but in the mean time it seems unfair to unneccessarily put children in the line of fire just to make a point.

Reply 94

ma2k5

I don't support homosexuality, but I won't go fight them, I will be tolerant.

However, when it comes to raising children, It is really a serious question as if a child will get the same benefits as having a mother and father compared to 2 mothers or 2 fathers. Personally, I think every child should have a mother and a father. Secondly, it could backlash later in life for the children. I think children ought to have the right to be raised by a man and a women - for him to be forced into being adopted by 2 persons of the same sex (who have a sexual relationship) could be a burden on the children in the future - Whether or not this should be the case it doesnt matter, the fact is It must have some affect.

At the same time, yes gay parents are better than no parents I guess...

Anyway, thats my opinion. Maybe if a child at an older age, where they can decide properly for themselves, meh, then maybe thats up to them.

Reply 95

Jonatan

Zebedee

Define normal. How do you rank two obese straight parents against two fit gay parents. What about smokers against non-smokers? How about disabled people? There is NO credible evidence to suggest kids are damaged by having gay parents. There IS a lot of evidence saying passive smoking increases the risk of cancer. Should smokers come after gay parents?

The flaw of your logic is that you assume all parents are equivalent except for their sexual orientation, that is not the case. There are no "normal" parents. The average person has less than one two legs, would be somewhat bisexual and live in the centre of the earth.

What I'm trying to say is that your idea of the difference between straight and gay parents is naive and ridiculous, and you should seriously take some time to think about your idea of what the world is like.

Reply 96

Jonatan

ma2k5

I think children ought to have the right to be raised by a man and a women - for him to be forced into being adopted by 2 persons of the same sex (who have a sexual relationship) could be a burden on the children in the future - Whether or not this should be the case it doesnt matter, the fact is It must have some affect.

The vast majority of psychologists don't agree with that. As an example, even in the US, a place that has traditionally not been very gay friendly, the American Psychological Association, as well as the American Psychiatric Association both support Lesbian and Gay adoption.

Reply 97

Arminius

I think the idea of being gay and at the same time a parent is very unnatural. (it is, two gay men cannot create a child of their own naturally).

Therefor the natural arrangement of things is for childen only to grow up with a mother and father and i think this is the best set up, its worked well in the past and will work well in the future.

The idea of adoption is that a straight couple can emulate this "natural situation" through adopting somebody elses kids. Apart from being not biologically linked this situation is still very similar to the typical family.

A gay couple however is not emulating this "tried and tested" arrangement and is something of an experiment in my opinion. Like giving a kid to a couple of students to look after (better than noone right?)/

This isn;t about gay rights or anything like that people are turning into, its simply working out whats best environment for kids to grow up in.

As for Jonathans point about "suitability", obviously natural families do not need any sort of approval befor having a child. Adopting families to my knowledge do get assessed for their suitability and i think thats right. Weighing up the "unnaturalness" of a same sex couple vs smokers or low income or criminal parents is a difficult assessment to make. I couldn't really say how you could measure them up.

It would be easier i think to verge on the side of caution though, rather than engage in this liberal minded experiment.

Reply 98

Arminius

Jonatan

Of course they do, they don't want to get bad press or be called "anti gay". Its much safer in todays climate to say what the media want to be here than to stick your neck out and come out with a truthfull opinion. Therefore what these organisations say is of little weight IMO.

The only way to tell would be to raise two families in identical conditions with no experimental bias, presumably with clones too...

Reply 99

gurk

Jonatan

Fatally flawed argument - biological parents of children can be fat, poor, stupid, or immigrants (Where did you get that one as a negative factor?), but they cannot be same-sex.

Nature allows for flawed parents, but it doesn't allow for same-sex parents.

Of course, necessity will eventually push forward gay-adoption, as we come up with a shortage of suitable 'normal' adopting couples. Gay adoption comes with disadvantages, but they're better than no parents.