HOMOSEXUALITY AND ADOPTION

I am really surprised that the NCFA and other adoption agencies have not gotten on the band wagon of this. At the same time, it really doesn't surprise me. They will use the rules to suit their needs period.

The Gay/Lesbian adoption movement is making this adoption thing about their right to adopt. There is no such thing as the right to adopt. There is not one for straight people. Just like adoptees not having access to their own records, it is however discrimination. Even though I don't like promoting adoption, I do however also realize that we can't get around it. We can make it adoptee centric. Will that happen? No it won't because that would mean a loss in revenue.

Recently this article came up with Thomas Atwood. I believe if an adoption agency receives federal funds, they should not be allowed to discriminate. In fact, they should not even be allowed to enter the political arena. Thomas Atwood's organization, the National Council for Adoption, does just that. Thomas Atwood doesn't stand up for adoptees nor their families. He wants to put his religious and financial interests above adoptees and their families.

Here is the story.

Friday Five: Thomas Atwood

by Devon Williams, associate editor

'It's self-evident that the natural order of the family is a mother and father.'

Catholic Charities of Boston has placed 720 children into adoptive families over the last 20 years. Now, a Massachusetts law requiring child-placement services to allow homosexuals to adopt has forced the organization to end its adoption program.

Thomas Atwood, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. National Council for Adoption, said children are the victims when faith-based organizations are forced to choose between compromising their beliefs and closing their doors.

Atwood recently spoke with CitizenLink.

1. How do you respond to gay activists who claim they have the "right" to adopt?

A lot of the argumentation you hear for nondiscrimination in child placements amounts to a rights argument, a right of adults. But, there is no right to adopt. Adoption is about finding the best possible parents for children, not about finding children for adults who would like to parent. There's no right to adopt, and if there's no right to adopt, then there's no "equal right" to adopt. So the rights argument is totally out of place.

2. How do "nondiscrimination" laws like the one in Massachusetts affect children?

It's really a violation of religious liberty to force a faith-based organization that does not recognize homosexual orientation as an appropriate lifestyle for parenting to make those kind of placements. An equally fundamental problem is that when you force compassionate, professional, excellent agencies — who have been making placements for years and decades and more than a century — out of service, the result is going to be that children will not have families. There are potential adoptive placements and foster placements that will not be made.

3. Do you foresee the rest of the U.S. following Massachusetts' lead?

It certainly seems to be an item on the agenda of homosexuality advocates. There are many adoption agencies in the United States that hold moral and religious convictions against adoptive placements with homosexuals. If this policy became the law of the land, it would result in thousands of children being deprived of families because of the many adoption agencies that would be forced to close.

4. What is the best family structure for a child?

We believe that whenever possible, husband-and-wife couples should be preferred for child placements for adoption and foster care. It's self-evident that the natural order of the family is a mother and father, and that is the tried-and-true model for parenting. Clearly, the best outcomes for children result from husband-and-wife couples.

5. What can Christians do to help?

There wouldn't be an issue regarding same-sex placements if believers were stepping up to the responsibility of caring for the fatherless. There are a little more than a half-million children in foster care in the United States — 129,000 are waiting to be adopted. That sounds like a large number, but look at some other large numbers. There are approaching 400,000 places of worship in the United States — that's three places of worship for every child waiting to be adopted. There are 57.5 million married-couple households in the United States — that's (about) 500 married couples for every one child waiting to be adopted. Can't we find one family out of every three churches to adopt one child?

A high school adoptee responds both to Thomas Atwood and John McCain on gay adoption.

Here is the link. Here is the story.

Between The Lines Newspaper
From issue number 1631
Return to PrideSource

John McCain should talk to the real expert on my family - me

By Alan O'Brien-Myers

Originally printed 7/31/2008

Viewpoint

As someone who was adopted by two lesbian moms, I was certainly disappointed to find out that John McCain, a candidate for President of the United States, doesn't "believe in gay adoption."

What's not to believe in? Many gays and lesbians adopt children and create wonderful, loving families. My moms adopted me out of foster care when I was 11 years old. I'm 17 now. I love my family. My moms provide for me in all the ways that other parents provide for their children. We have our problems just like everybody else, but in the end we take care of each other. We believe in each other.

What we don't believe in is John McCain and any other politician who is out of touch with the reality of American families. Not all families are married moms and dads with their biological children. Many children are raised by single parents, unmarried parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and more. What makes these families real is the love and care they have for each other; their commitment to seeing each other through good times and bad.

John McCain says he supports a quicker route to adoption so kids who need homes can get them faster, but he clearly has a bias against my kind of family and all the ones I listed above. If John McCain had his way, my family would not exist. I'm not giving up my family just because John McCain is confused about what really makes a family.

If John McCain really cared about families, he would trust the professionals who have agreed that sexual orientation doesn't affect someone's ability to be a good parent. He would listen to my voice and the voice of many other kids being raised by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents. It's not that our families are better, just that we're basically the same, except in most places the laws don't protect our families very well. If John McCain really cared about families like mine, he would let LGBT people marry the person they love so that all families can be treated equally to others.

My two moms, my little brother and me, we're doing just fine. We could do a little better if we had the support of people like John McCain, who as President or even as a senator has so much power over how other people live their lives. Without his support, we'll keep doing what we've always done - love each other, care for each other, argue like all families, make up like all families and continue to work for a country that really respects all of its people and families.

We'd rather have our next president support us. Wouldn't you?

Alan O'Brien-Myers is a senior at Holyoke High School in Holyoke, MA, where he lives with his two moms and younger brother. To comment on this column, e-mail editor@pridesource.com

I do not consider gay adoption an attack on religious liberty. Its funny that the Right to Life movement, Church organizations such as Catholic Charities, and others consider this situation just that. Is adoption about the parents or the adoptee? Lord knows its not about adoptees. Since they want to ban even gay parents, is it even really about the adopters? Its not about the mothers or fathers of loss. They have already been kicked to the curb.

I think its about the agencies and their ability to gain money as long as they control the total outcomes of all of our reactions.

Here is another story. Here is the link to that one.

EDITORIAL: Religious liberty

California did more than just legalize same-sex marriages in June. Its decision has the potential to threaten one of America's greatest freedoms - religious liberty - by ruling that sexual orientation is a matter of discrimination.

The keyword is "discrimination," which equates sexual orientation to race, gender, age, etc. This categorization enables homosexuals, transgenders and others to cite their sexual tendencies as grounds for discrimination in lawsuits against employers, insurance companies and those administering such civil duties as granting marriage licenses.

Legal professionals bridging the political spectrum agree that if there is not careful lawmaking, vigilant voters and open dialogue, the ruling could lead to churches and other houses of worship, as well as religious nonprofits, losing tax breaks, rights to license marriages and preach on the issue of homosexuality.

Part of the problem is that most religious-based institutions receive some form of government funding (partly due to President Bush's faith-based initiative, which has been endorsed by John McCain and Barack Obama, who touts his own initiative on the campaign trail). The initiative seeks to strengthen faith-based and community organizations and expand their capacity to provide federally funded social services. The idea, of course, is that these community-oriented groups are better suited to deliver services to local families and individuals.

The question that arises now is how is the government going to rectify the fact that many Judeo-Christian organizations "discriminate" against same-sex individuals and couples by reinforcing, as the Bible does, that homosexuality is an "abomination," by refusing to rent their facilities to homosexuals and by denying the sacrament of holy matrimony to same-sex couples.

The answer could be a snowball of problems for those religious groups that refuse to sacrifice their beliefs for the sake of public policy, including but not limited to lawsuits from homosexuals for discrimination in hiring and revocation of tax breaks from the government.

This has already proven true in Boston, where the Catholic Charities adoption agency refused to place children in the care of same-sex couples, adhering to the Roman Catholic Church's condemnation of same-sex marriage. The result? Catholic Charities of Boston ended its 103-year-old adoption program in June 2006 - opting to relinquish its founding mission rather than abandon the Catholic Church's teaching and comply with Massachusetts state law requiring that gays be allowed to adopt children.

There was a similar case in Sacramento, where Catholic Charities refused to insure an employee's prescription for birth control. Once again, the organization stood by Catholic teaching. This time, the organization was forced by the California Supreme Court to provide its employees in California with medical coverage for birth control, in spite of its religious objections to contraception.

These two cases alone - both of which occurred prior to California's recent ruling on same-sex marriage - have sweeping implications for religion-based groups. Moreover, the implications threaten one of America's greatest freedoms: religious liberty. What will Americans do about that?