|
What's Best for the Children 2/17/2005 Public policy regarding adoption should not be directed by the desire of adults to become parents. Editor's note: Concerned Women for America's Robert Knight is testifying today before the Virginia Senate on an important, proposed bill that would ensure that adoptive children are placed in mother/father married families. His testimony follows.
Good afternoon.
We're here to talk about what's best for children and how to secure for them the best possible adoptive homes.
Public policy should be guided not by what some adults want but by what's actually best for children. In most debates, homosexual activists argue that they "deserve" to be parents or that they "want" to be parents. Well, that's understandable. There's a universal longing to be a father or a mother, but this doesn't mean everyone is equally qualified.
The activists also assert that this is about "equality," but that's not true. A household that is missing an entire parental sex, that is, missing a mother or a father, is not equal to a married household.
When placing children in foster homes, the state should do everything in its power to provide the best chance for them to have a balanced, happy home life. A lot of these children come out of a troubled background. They need the best situation. This means finding homes with a married mother and father-not a home with two homosexuals, or a home with two heterosexuals who are unwilling to make a lifelong commitment to each other. Even with the nation's high divorce rate, married homes are far more stable on average than any other model.
This is not about parenting abilities. There are some wonderful single parents who do their best under tough circumstances. But children in single-mother homes can tell you that they don't crave another mom; they want a father. Kids in single-father homes don't crave another daddy; they want a mom.
House Bill No. 2921 wisely seeks to establish public policy that aims to fulfill children's need to have a married mother and a father.
In the popular film Sleepless in Seattle, a desperate little boy goes on the radio to seek a wife for his single father. He's already got a great dad, played by Tom Hanks. The boy does not want another dad; he wants a mom. Yet, we're told that public policy should be indifferent to that boy's needs. To put it another way, do we really think the boy would not notice if, instead of getting new mom Meg Ryan, he wound up with a guy from Queer as Folk as his "second dad?"
It's wrong to place a child in a deliberately motherless or fatherless household, especially when there are married couples waiting to adopt. The National Council on Adoption estimates that between 1 million and 2 million married couples are on waiting lists. They are going to China, Russia and Romania at great expense, seeking children. There is no excuse for placing kids in a motherless or fatherless household or one that isn't even bound by a marital commitment.
Even when a straight, single parent adopts a child, there is at least a chance that a husband or wife will eventually join the parent. But in a homosexual household, there is a deliberate choice to deny a child - for life - of growing up with a father or a mother in the house.
Such a child misses out on viewing, up close, three important relationships: between mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, and men and women, not to mention the special ways in which parents of either sex relate to their sons or daughters.
Who among us could say that our father could be replaced by a lesbian, and this would not have made any difference in our lives? Or that our mother could just as easily have been a male homosexual? Men and women are not interchangeable. Mothers and fathers provide crucial things to children that cannot be duplicated in a same-sex household, regardless of the parenting abilities or good intentions of the adults. Every child deserves a first-class adoption, not to become the object of a politically-driven social experiment.
Homosexual activists and their allies at professional organizations often assert that "science" has proved that children are no different if raised in homosexual households. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) even released a statement to this effect, and featured an article in an AAP journal by a pro-homosexual researcher as the foundation for its assessment. This researcher showed her biases right up front by describing marriage itself as a "heterosexist" institution. So much for objective science.
Most "gay parenting" studies compare children in lesbian households with children in heterosexual, single-mother households. The only major study1 to directly compare children raised in married, single-parent and same-sex households was published by the journal Children Australia, and it revealed that, "Overall, the study has shown that children of married couples are more likely to do well at school, in academic and social terms, than children of cohabiting heterosexual and homosexual couples."
The "gay parenting" studies, as a whole, are extremely flawed, with all but a handful written by pro-homosexual researchers. In No Basis: What the studies Don't tell us about same-sex parenting,2 authors Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai demonstrate that all of these studies are "gravely deficient," with some having self-selected sample sizes of less than a dozen people. Earlier, the Journal of Divorce & Remarriage examined a number of "gay parenting" studies and reported: "The conclusion that there are no significant differences in children reared by lesbian mothers versus heterosexual mothers is not supported by the published research data base."3
One of the most frequently cited researchers, Charlotte Patterson of the University of Virginia, a lesbian who often testifies in adoption and custody cases, was rebuked by a Florida court for failing to reveal how she documented her findings. The court, by the way, upheld Florida's law barring homosexuals from adopting, and that verdict was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2001, a team of pro-homosexual researchers from the University of Southern California did a meta-analysis of "gay parenting" studies and published a refreshingly honest article in American Sociological Review,4 "(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?" The authors concluded that, yes, studies show that girls are more likely to "be sexually adventurous and less chaste," including being more likely to try lesbianism, and that boys are more likely to have "fluid" conceptions of gender roles, and that researchers should stop trying to cover this up in the hopes of pursuing a pro-homosexual agenda. The researchers said, in effect: Some of the kids are more likely to turn out gay or bisexual, but so what?
Even with all their statistical shortcomings, the parenting studies, as a whole, show that children raised in same-sex households are more likely to view homosexuality positively, try homosexuality themselves, or to suffer gender identity confusion. This makes sense; children's most important role models are their parents. If homosexual behavior is offered to them as normal on a daily basis, more of them are going to think it is normal and desirable.
In an often-quoted study by Susan Golombok and Fiona Tasker,5 the authors note that the "large majority of children who grew up in lesbian households identified as heterosexual." But another of their findings is often ignored: "Those who had grown up in a lesbian family were more likely to consider the possibility of having lesbian or gay relationships, and to actually do so." The authors conclude that growing up in a lesbian household's "accepting atmosphere" of homosexuality "may facilitate the development of a lesbian or gay sexual orientation for some individuals. But, interestingly, the opportunity to explore same-sex relationships may, for others, confirm their heterosexual identity."
Since there is no credible scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetic, it makes sense that kids exposed to parental homosexuality will tend to see it as a viable option. This is tragic, since homosexuality has well-documented health risks, especially for young men, but also for young women.
Various medical journals report drastically higher incidences of sexually transmitted diseases, shortened life spans, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and psychological problems among homosexuals.6 San Francisco and New York health authorities are now grappling with a new strain of HIV that is resistant to drug treatments and can result in full-blown AIDS within a year or two instead of the usual 10-year incubation. They're also greatly alarmed by a new strain of Chlamydia among young homosexual men that is resisting treatment.
Homosexuality aside, it should be no mystery that children need and want both a mother and a father; it's a self-evident truth. It follows that public policy ought to encourage placement of children in married households.
Some children of homosexual parents are beginning to speak out and contradict the idea that it's the same as being raised with a mom and dad. I have heard from several people raised by homosexuals who have told me that they are still dealing, years later, with family dysfunction. One woman poignantly related how she felt when she came out of her bedroom one night and saw her father kiss his male lover on the lips. She said she was physically ill and to this day needs counseling.
Here's a letter we received at Concerned Women for America from a woman named Emily:
"Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you are doing to protect children from being placed in homosexual households. I spent part of my teenage years living with my mother and her female lover. It was a heartbreaking and disturbing experience to say the least. The needs of the children MUST be placed before the desires of adults. Throughout my life, the most well-balanced and successful people I encounter come from healthy, loving, traditional families. I wish I did too!"
In conclusion, let me pose a scenario that, I hope, will put this into perspective. Most of you here are married and have children. If something happened to you and your spouse, would you be comfortable having your son placed in a house with two homosexual men, or a house with two lesbians? How about your daughter being placed with two lesbians, or with two homosexual men?
If those scenarios trouble you as to your own children, why would it be okay for other people's children? The state of Virginia owes all foster children a first-class adoption, nothing less.
HB No. 2921 is a step in that direction.
Thank you.
|
|
|
Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
Feedback / Questions? || Problem with this page? || Archives
