This past Monday, there was a panel discussion in the Dawg House as to whether or not homosexuals should be allowed to adopt children. No one is quite positive about how many children have at least one parent who is gay, but estimates range from 1 to 9 million.
When I was asked if I was interested in tackling an opinion piece on this subject, I admit, I was quite intimidated. How in the world can I, at 20, be so pompous and arrogant to say I have enough information and knowledge to formulate an opinion on this sensitive issue? Further, how can any of us formulate an opinion with the curse of this postmodern world? Nothing can be taken as truth. In every argument for, there are just as many against. But in my quest to formulate an opinion, I have realized an invaluable truth, and it is in the context of this newfound certainty in which my article should be read.
I have realized there is something incredibly valuable about understanding you may not have it right, and it is not until we learn to see multiple facets of issues that we can really be honest with ourselves and our conclusions. How can you be confident in an opinion if you only focus on the side with which you agree?
So where to begin? In 2007, James Dobson of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family wrote in Time magazine, “The majority of more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father.”
Further, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts cited, “A growing body of research that tells us the child raised without his or her biological father is significantly more likely to live in poverty, do poorly in school, drop out altogether, become a teen parent, exhibit behavioral problems, smoke, drink, use drugs or wind up in jail.”
Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and an expert on census data involving gay and lesbian households, said the problem with such research is it only compares children of heterosexual couples to those of single parents and not to those belonging to same-sex parent families.
“There are virtually no studies that make a direct comparison with same-sex parents,” Gates said, noting census data shows one in four same-sex couples are raising a child under of 18.
In fact, a number of professional medical organizations – including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association – have issued statements claiming a parent’s sexual orientation is irrelevant to his or her ability to raise a child.
The American Psychological Association has stated homosexual parents are just as likely as heterosexual parents to provide healthy environments for raising kids, and lesbians are no less able to care for their children than heterosexual women.
Further, in 2002, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported on the psychosocial development of children raised by same-sex parents. The report said, “A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with 1 or 2 gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual. Children’s optimal development seems to be influenced more by the nature of the relationships and interactions within the family unit than by the particular structural form it takes.”
The report also said, “Parents’ sexual orientation is not a variable that, in itself, predicts their ability to provide a home environment that supports children’s development.”
Personally, this argument makes a lot of sense to me. It seems the most important factor in rearing children is not necessarily that parents be heterosexual, but the actual quality of the relationship. I would be more sympathetic in the context of adoption toward a gay or lesbian couple who has been together for a number of years and been married or desire to do so than toward a man or woman who go out and have one-night stands every weekend in which there is no commitment or love involved.
But at the same time, in my heterosexual bias, I feel what a man and woman share would be completely different than what a homosexual couple might feel. Some could argue love between a man and woman means something a little more if its actual love because it is harder and can require more work. That is because in general, males understand other males more easily and vice versa. So, being male and being with a woman and the converse would be a lot harder. Of course, all of that could be a moot point because I have no idea how a homosexual views himself or herself, whether more masculine than feminine, for example, and further, if homosexual relationships usually entail a masculine and feminine partner. This would also point to the question whether a true homosexual relationship is only one in which two masculine or two feminine individuals are together.
How are organizations coming to these conclusions about the effects of gay adoption? For the most part, organizations are relying on a relatively small but conclusive body of research – approximately 67 studies – looking at children of gay parents and compiled by the APA. In study after study, children in same-sex parent families turned out the same as children in heterosexual families.
Gates said, “The problem with these studies is that most of the children are from ‘intentional’ same-sex parent families, where the parents tend to be better educated, more affluent and more open about their sexual orientation and who deliberately conceive or adopt children with the intention of raising them in a same-sex parent family.”
My research suggests that’s not the typical gay parent household. In fact, only 6 percent of same-sex parents have an adopted child, and a sizable number appear to be living in some kind of step-family arrangement, in which parents “come out later and have children from an earlier heterosexual marriage or relationship.”
It is indisputable white couples of relatively high income have been the focus of most studies while census figures show about 45 percent of same-sex parents are either black or Latino. And most of those same-sex couples with children have household incomes below that of their opposite-sex married counterparts.
Gates contemplates the children who have been pressured by their parents not to talk since “there may be higher levels of stigmatization in minority communities regarding homosexuality.” So, gay households could and probably are subjecting their children to possible psychological trauma via continued harassment, teasing, stigmatization and a hindered social life. But we know children can be cruel, and bullying happens in every school and in nearly all groups of preteens and teens. There exists a possibility that children may experience some teasing based on their parents’ sexual orientation, but research shows the likelihood of these children being teased doesn’t increase due to their parents’ sexual orientation. In other words, children will be teased about anything a bully can figure to tease them about.
It is up to adults to try to combat bullying and instill confidence in children who experience teasing. There is no evidence or argument to show gay parents can’t be effective in doing those things. Why should the fear of this keep a homeless child from a potential adoptive home full of love, whether that love comes from a homosexual or not, in which someone is willing to sacrifice themselves emotionally and economically?
In fact, there has been more research done on gay parenting than some other non-traditional family structures such as children raised by stay-at-home fathers or grandparents. Abundant research shows most kids of same-sex households describe themselves as heterosexual in roughly the same proportion as conventional families. That is why the APA also concludes gay parents are just as capable as straight parents, and laws barring same-sex couples from adopting have no scientific basis.
Those laws, nevertheless, do exist. At least six states have overt restrictions on adoptions by gays and lesbians: Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, Utah, Nebraska and Michigan, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Jesse Levey, a Republican activist raised by two lesbians, poses some interesting thoughts.
“The laws may have been passed to protect the family, but allowing gay people to marry could actually strengthen the family. The conservative argument for family values is that we should be in married couples; I agree. If we want to see children raised by married couples, then we should let gay people get married,” Levey said.
A Republican lobbying for same-sex marriages? Yes. Isn’t that the essential doctrine of conservatism and libertarianism? The notion of individual freedom?
Why then does no one question the psychological effects of being raised by single or multiple grandparents or a stay-at-home dad? Should we also ban them from adoption because they will not be able to rear a child as effectively as two heterosexual parents? Further, let’s argue all the conservative think tanks are right. In this train of thought, a gay household is a “recruitment center” for future gays. Why, from a societal or even a government’s perspective, should we care if gay households are pumping out more gays? Are they evil or scary or bad?
“I don’t trust that group at all,” said Peter Spriggs of the Family Research Council, a conservative group who has dismissed studies cited by the APA, saying the researchers used flawed methodology and self-selected subjects inclined to favor homosexuality. And hey, maybe they are right, but like I said above, why aren’t they also questioning the other nontraditional family units?
It is obvious to me then the issue of homosexuality, even with those who are respectful and understanding of homosexuals is, to many, a moral issue with eternal consequences. In this context, in conjunction with the lack of empirical evidence, the push to ban gay adoption could be seen more about gay discrimination than child welfare.
The question I ask myself is this: Does a homosexual couple adopting in Mississippi set up context in which a child can develop in a good way? Does it bring more chaos than good?
Psychologically, which would be worse: to grow up without parents, or with a loving homosexual couple, teasing and some social consequences included? Also, could this discussion really be more about fixing institutions to guarantee that children who don’t have parents grow up well regardless?
There. That’s all I have to say. I’ve put that out into the universe now. It’s out for all the cosmos to see. So have I effectively destroyed all my future political and economical aspirations now? I hope not. But then again, wasn’t it hopeless to begin with? Who would vote or promote a guy named Julio anyway?
Julio Cespedes is a senior majoring in biological engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].