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Introduction
Equality in marriage has not turned into equality in adoption for gay couples in United States. In their quest to gain this legal right the gay couple believes that they will have won the first step towards having their families being recognized by law. Adoption is a concept that has been in existence with the American society for a long time, but it is only recently that we have started to hear about the concept of gay adoption (Ritter, 2010). The society is made up of many orphaned children; they live under pathetic conditions as homeless people or in orphanages. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who are willing to take care of these children in a family set up, people have children of their own, and others don’t want to get children and therefore they don’t see any reason to adopt. Yet there could be a solution to this problem in the form of gay couples.
Homosexuals would have loved to have children through adoption means, yet this has been made impossible due to the fact that this is a practice that is illegal in most states in United States. It is not right for the constitution to provide these people with the right to get married and then deny them the right to access what makes a family whole; children. This is an unconstitutional right and gay parents should be allowed the right to adopt children as long as they have the capacity to take care of the children given to them by the authorities (Ritter, 2010).
Definition of Terms
Adoption; this is defined as a legal process in the law which gives rights of a parent to adoptive parents. It is all about taking a child into a family as a permanent member of that family
Same-sex adoption; this is a new concept where people of the same sex united in marriage are given the chance to exercise parental responsibilities on an adopted child
Legalization requirements; this refers to the legal merits that makes an act constitutional. There are processes that must be followed in order to make a certain act constitutional.
Same Sex Adoption
Gay parent adoption as defined above has elicited legal issues that are very complex and that involve several considerations. All over the world, there are only 14 states that have managed to allow gay couples to legally adopt. As the case is in United States, there are states that allow gay couples to adopt yet they have not been able to come up with national laws which permit the practice. There are few states in US that prohibit gay adoption while others have no straight forward laws on the issue. There are few countries such as Iceland and Finland which allows a single partner from a gay union to adopt the biological child of the other.
There are other countries in which a gay individual can petition the court to allow him/her to adopt, but they are not allowed to do so as a couple (Reed, 2013). In Africa, the issue of gay marriage is illegal and therefore there is no such jurisdiction which can listen to issues of gay adoption. It is quite unfair when gay couples have to move from one area that they feel is hostile to their bid to adopt to another which allows one to adopt. It is a huge hustle that can be avoided through coming up with laws that will help then adopt wherever they are.
The reasons as to why the concept of same sex marriage has been illegalized are many apart from the fact that there are many people who object to the concept. There are those who would say that it is unnatural practice and it would end up creating children who are psychologically corrupt, and others oppose the concept on the basis of their religious belief. There are several states in United States which have acted with an open mind when it comes to the concept of gay adoption, but there are other states which have taken a tough stance on the issue and the concept is still illegal.
Psychologist Maier Bill opined that children in most of the foster care are already going through hard times, the emotional and psychological torture is too much for them, and it is believed that the best way to help these children is through finding a means through which they can be taken into a real family care. There are researches carried out which have indicated that gay couples have done well in terms of raising their children, by allowing more gay couple to be able to adopt means that the states would have increased the number of families with the ability to take care of children in the foster care (Appell, 2001). Children under foster care would not object to having a stable gay parent compare to the fact that they are moved around from one foster family to another. The practice of foster shuffle means that a child can be moved around quite often before they turn the age of majority. This is one element of instability in a child’s life
Data indicates that there are several children who are taken into foster care each year. There are almost half a million children under foster care in the United States. From the above numbers, each and every child is eligible for adoption (Appell, 2001). When we deny gay couples a chance to get a child out of that huge number is being generally unfair, denying the child and the gay parents a right to live as a union is not only against the constitution but also heavily heartbreaking. Considering that there are several places where gay parents are taking care of children as foster parents, moving them into real parents is just a step that the states need to take into consideration.
Catholic as a religion is against the practice of gay adoption, the church has a belief that it is not proper for a child to grow up with gay parents (Dugmore & Cocker, 2008).The argument is that in gay relationships the child grows under a single sex, and would lack the care of a father or a mother. Their view does make sense; that a child needs to grow up with a mother and father role model. To think in the line of the church would mean that gay couples are people who live in isolation. They too have families, with people of mixed gender; both male and female can be found from the extended family. Through them the children can learn what could have been taught by a father or a mother.
Adoption process should not be based on sexual orientation, basing the criteria on sexual orientation would allow the society to be mean on the concept of rational thinking. The three main issues that should dictate whether one is legible to adopt should include care, devotion and family stability. There is a documented case of Danny Stewart who found a child in a subway and took it to the relevant authorities. The case was called and he was asked to testify by the judge, at this point he was asked whether there was any chance that he would want to adopt the child, and he said yes, in unlikely turn of events he was gay and was married to Peter Mercurio (Montero, 2014).
They were able to adopt the child. In United States, the prisons are full of people who were raised under the foster care, they were raised under the environment of the so called straight people yet they did not turn out as great as the society would have anticipated (Montero, 2014). What really matters is the fact that the parent can be able to provide the child with the needed care.
The streets are full of untrained psychologists who have declared that if children are raised by gay couple they will end up with huge psychological damage. The real psychologists who have done proper research would argue contrary to the above notion. According to Bryan Samuels research has shown that putting children under care of gay couple does not have any risk beyond putting the same children under heterosexual care (Reed, 2013).
Children who come out of foster families are able to do well when placed under the heterosexual or gay couples. It is right that we have to take into consideration the fact that such children could face certain prejudice from their peers, but this is a situation that is brought about by the bigger picture of how the society perceive the gay couples and then pass it unto their young children.
The society has put much attention on matters of gay people, yet whatever happens to heterosexuals is never a concern of the gay (Hicks, 2013). As a matter of fact, gay parents should be worried about the influence of society on the children that they would have adopted; this is due to the fact that prejudice will paint this relationship as a rarity and the adopted child will always be questioned on how they feel. This could be different perhaps if more gay people could have been allowed to adopt so that it does not become a unique issue when a gay couple adopts.
When a small girl is being teased by the fact that her parents are gay or lesbian paints the society as a field made up of judgmental herders. The young children growing up gets most their attitude from people whom they are growing up with, perhaps the level of labeling among the young children adopted by gays would reduce if most of the parents would start to see gays as people with equal rights operating under their own setting.
It is beyond my understanding how the United States can have laws that allow gay people to marry and still fail to create laws that can allow the said families complete. When gay people are given the right to come into a union just like the heterosexuals, it means that they should be given the same rights as the heterosexuals in all aspects (Hicks, 2013). The country does not need to pretend, if it is deemed proper to ban gay marriages, the intention could have been shown from the start and no gay union should have been made legal.
African countries have been honest with themselves, and they have ensured that gay marriages are illegal. It has saved them the heart ache of having to deliberate whether the same people they have afforded the right to marry have the right to have children. Common knowledge dictates that there is no way gay couples can have children the natural way and therefore the only way they will be at a position to enjoy the privilege is through adoption (Gibson, 2014).
Having gone through most of the points against the legalization of gay adoption, there is no evidence based on fact which justifies this form of discrimination. Science has indicated that children who are raised under gay union are not at any point or instance worse off compared to those raised through heterosexual parents. The courts in Florida did understand in 2010 that there wasn’t any factual reason for the ban, and the law was altered to allow the gay couples to adopt children of their own.
Whenever there is no science to prove that is right to discriminate against another individual, such differential treatment ought to be removed (Hicks, 2013). This is how it will be easy for the society to create the highly needed democratic space. Gagging some people out of sheer political or religious alignment should never stand in law. The law is all about being factual when making decisions that are important about life.
Conclusion
When we allow more gays to adopt would mean that the state governments are opening up more doors for children out of foster care into families. Every citizen has a right to be a parent, and not allowing gay couples to adopt children is one way through which this right is being infringed into. Just like any other parent, gay couples are effective in taking care of the child as long as there is commitment as well as resources that would make it possible. Through legalization of gay adoption we will rip the benefit as the society.
There will be homes with loving parents where the young ones can go to and feel accepted just like their peers born of heterosexual parents. This is a means through the government will be able to lower cases of delinquent juveniles which usually comes up due to poor conditions that they go through while under foster care. For a child who is under the harsh condition of a foster care, having gay loving parents would be a bonus that they would accept with open arms. Gay adoption is a solution to some of the social issues that the society faces; it means that we have to ensure that we make use of this opportunity while it lasts.
