For some people the future does not hold everything they hoped for. Members of the LGBT community felt after winning the freedom to marry as if the entire struggle was over and that now everything they had so foolishly been denied would be within their reach. However, for many couples seeking a family that future was impossible. In the United States of America only 16 states allow LGBT couples to completely adopt (LGBT…Statistics).
For couples that may encounter complications regarding having children rely on adoption to build a family and for a large portion of our population that right is denied based only on their sexuality. Laws and restrictions force onto LGBT couples are founded in homophobic stereotyping and fear mongering. As such restrictions are violating people’s freedoms the United States government needs to introduce a law that secures the freedom for all same-sex and LGBT couples to adopt and jointly raise a child as two legal guardians.
The LGBT community’s struggle for their denied rights has been an uphill battle for generations. Dating as far back as the Stone Wall Riots in 1969 where LGBT people were attacked for simply gathering in an LGBT exclusive space. Adoptive rights are only one of many battles to be fought and hopefully won. Although today’s world is more tolerant of the LGBT community persistent homophobia keeps capable parents away from children that need them.
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As reported by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, “397,122 children are living without families… 101,666 of these children are eligible for adoption”. In an article by LGBT friendly adoption agency LifeLong Adoptions, it’s been estimated that over two million LGBT community members are interested in adoption (LGBT… Facts). With so many people needing families, and so many people willing to make families it’s a wonder that LGBT adoptions are so heavily stigmatized and shunned. Especially, considering they offer all the chances at love as any other adoption. In light of such a need in families it is shocking to see so few state permitting LGBT adoptions.
In fact in most states partners cannot jointly petition to adopt. Instead of allowing LGBT couples to adopt like any other couple would as a pair, they are unjustly restricted to one parent/partner to petition for adoption and become a child’s legal guardian. This favored but problematic system allows that one parent the sole custody of their child in the event of a divorce. And worse, in the event of that parent’s death the remaining parent might have to fight for the custody of their child (same-sex).
These cruel laws stem from an awful source. A 1977 campaign referred to as “Save our Children”. It was a conservative movement lead by Anita Bryant that spread “fear” by propagating the time tired lie, that gay parents would convert their children (Miller).
These thoughts helped push through restrictive laws that that have only caused people to spread misguided information and fear. And has allowed homophobic fear, and not freedom to rule our public policy.
In today’s community these lingering resentments and fears are supplemented by other obscure conservative or church groups. Such groups feel that a parent’s sexuality could in theory “rub-off” on a child leaving it to grow up thinking they’re gay when all along it was bad parental influence. There is no empirical data marking any correlation between a parent’s sexuality to a child’s, which makes their claims a tragically transparent proof of senseless homophobia (LGBT… Facts).
Others still insist that there’s something still not “quite-all-right” with LGBT adoption, even though a child’s sexuality isn’t dependent on their parents’, and that there are so many willing to adopt and so many children who need adoption. These people stress the importance of the family structure, and claim that without rigid familial architypes a child will be psychologically damaged and more prone to mental illness.
However, these same people never stop to question if structured families ever fail. The current divorce rate for straight couples is 40% of all marriages ending in divorce. Famous Star Trek actor George Takei, and his husband have been happily married for almost twenty years while many families, (like my own), built on the traditional model have collapsed. Highly stressful situations that surround a divorce on the other hand often cause detrimental psychological effects in children. And yet the anti-divorce movement is barely an existing platform in today’s social or political world.
In theory all parents have the tools to provide a loving home. Every couple gets to start out on a level playing field. For straight couples if there are no biological complications and a child is conceived they achieve their goal with hardly any setbacks. For people who cannot conceive there are a series of medical, financial, and emotional, hoops to jump through before finding a working solution.
However, LGBT couples are actively pursuing a dream. For and LGBT couple to both apply for adoption the must do so in only 16 of our nations states. In other states one of the parent’s may apply for adoption and the other one can go along for the ride. Laws, people, even Adoption Agencies fight against them in their pursuit of family. Nothing in the world could keep loving parents from this goal. Not even the government, or society’s homophobic laws. In recent years LGBT couples have made great strides towards adoptive equality. As of 2011 LGBT parents were raising 4% of the United States of America’s adopted children (LGBT…Facts).
But this system has to change. There is no value in a world that puts outdated lies, and lingering fear over a child’s happiness in a potentially loving home. When faced with the death of their spouse LGBT couples upon winning marriage equality won the right to medical, estate, and funeral decisions. But the same system which granted them their marriage license now holds back that grieving parent’s right to comfort their child. A child lost at the realization of death, a child endlessly drenched in the grief of losing one of their parents. A child that needs their mother or father. The popular system doesn’t care about that child. The popular system views that child as an orphan.
The popular system has to be stopped. That child needs their remaining parent, who in this time of need and sorrow is constricted by lawyers who insist they have no claim over their own child. Their only remaining reminder of the loved one they’ve lost. The only way to prevent these scenarios is to erase homophobia from public policy, stomp it out of the legal system and reinfuse our practices with common sense and understanding.
It is discriminatory to refuse a parent’s right to their son, daughter, or infant on the basis of their sexuality within a marriage or adoption. Our government needs to pass a law freeing LGBTQA+ couples to parent and love the children that need them. It was not within any man’s power to restrict that single right which in turn denies many children a loving home.
In a country with 120,000 orphans, 397,122 lacking a permanent home, and with as many as 1,400 children abandoned each year the time for adoption has never been more needed. And yet as a collective majority a large portion of potential parents are turned away because of their sexual orientation. Current laws are in place due to aggressive conservative movements from the 1970s that were rooted in misinformed fear0mongering homophobia and have no place in our nation’s future. Today’s LGBT community have lost a lot of media attention after winning the right to marry in all states, and because of this many non-LGBT people think the fight is over. But, until every human on this planet is capable of marrying and starting a family safely and regardless of sexuality or race the fight will never be over.
If the people become complacent we all face an impossible future in which only those deemed “stable”, and “traditional” will have the right to pursue the happiness, and freedom attached to the nation “America”. Which is a nation that has moved completely away from the exact freedom, and justice this country was supposed to stand for.
