For this project, I was most interested in researching a bit more about the
current legislation and public policy concerning the rights of same-sex couples
to adopt. In my opinion, this is one of the most important issues that affect
not only the basic rights of same-sex couples, but also the many children in
need of homes and parental guidance.
The Lambda Legal
website is a useful tool in understanding the legal rights of same-sex parents
in different states. According to the Lambda Legal website, there are around
250,000 children in the US today that are being raised by same-sex couples. According
to US Census Bureau data, this number has doubled since 2000. Despite the
growing prevalence of same-sex parent-child relationships, the rights of
same-sex couples to have families are still very limited, and differ among
states. While approximately half of the states in the US allow second-parent
adoptions by an unmarried partner of the first legal parent, many state courts
have ruled that these types of adoptions are not in accordance with state laws.
My home state of Massachusetts is one of the more progressive in terms of these
rulings; the state permits same-sex couples to marry, recognizes marriages from
other jurisdictions, and has approved of second-parent adoptions. However, in
more conservative states such as Texas, none of these rights are guaranteed,
and second-parents adoptions have been only been approved in some small courts.
Rulings against second-parent adoptions mean that many same-sex spouses or
partners remain legally unrecognized as parents, which has detrimental effects
on custody wars with ex-partners, ex-spouses and relatives. According to Lambda
Legal’s website, their legal victories ensuring legal ties between same-sex parents
and their children have had “a profound impact on the emotional and economic
stability of LGBT and HIV-affected families.” (http://www.lambdalegal.org/issues/adoption-and-parenting)
One of the reasons
that the rights of same-sex parents are still limited can be attributed to the
work of anti-gay activists who promulgate the idea that families with a biological
mother and father are best for society. This idea stems from their fear and resentment;
they are afraid of what will happen when the typical nuclear family model is deconstructed.
The link I chose to include in my blog
post directs us to a post on the Human Rights Campaign Blog. The article,
titled “Myth versus Fact: Anti-Gay Opposition Can’t Get Its Story Straight on
Adoption,” discusses the remarks made by John Eastman, the Board Chairman of
the National Organization for Marriage. He refers to Chief Justice John Roberts’
decision to adopt as “by far the second-best option,” despite the fact that
expert witness David Blankenhorn (in 2010 Perry case) stated in his testimony
that “children raised by gay or lesbian adoptive parents did just as well, if
not better, than those raised by their biological parents.” (http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/myth-versus-fact-anti-gay-opposition-cant-get-its-story-straight-on-adoptio)
I chose this piece because I believe
it illustrates the narrow mindedness of a portion of anti-gay activists. It shows that
limitations on basic human rights, such as the right to adopt, often stem from fear
and an inability to accept change. Just as traditional marriage has evolved
over the years to become less oppressive of women, family models must change as
well to become less oppressive same-sex couples. I did not grow up in the
conventional nuclear family model. I was raised by my biological mother and
father separately, as they divorced when I was in Kindergarten. I do not
believe that this put me at any disadvantage during my development; in fact, I believe
it taught me valuable lessons of compromise, independence and nontraditional
gender roles that I would not have learned if my parents had remained together.
For my Psychology of Women course
at Scripps, we learned that children of same-sex parents often times hold less
traditional gender norms than those of opposite-sex parents. If these “unconventional”
families, same-sex and otherwise, can help move our society towards more
progressive values of equality, then they may very well be the answer to our
society’s still rigid views of traditional gender roles more generally.
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