Gay Adoption Rights: The debate

This paper is an argumentative essay on gay adopting rights. Gay adopting rights refers to a form where there is a joint adoption by same sex couple (males) adoption by one partner of a same sex couple of the other’s biological child and adoption by one gay person. “Adoption is a legal process whereby an individual or a couple presumes the parenting for another who is not kin and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents” (Pertman, 2000). Globally, it is only 14 countries that have legalized same-sex adoption. In most countries, the phenomenon is against the law despite the fierce debate to allow such a phenomenon to be practiced. Oppossers’ main argument stems from the question of whether the adopting parents are in a position to be better parents.

In America, between 6 and 14 million children are living with at least one gay parent. Most of the American states no longer hold back the consent of accepting peoples’ sexual orientation. It is worth noting that the courts as well as state agencies put in practice a principle of best interest of the child standard in order to arrive at a solution. It is as a result of this approach that an individual sexual orientation can’t be used to limit them from adopting children least it is proven beyond doubt that the relationship will be harmful to the child. Close to 22 states permit gay men and lesbians to adopt children via state or private run agencies (Bozett, 1987).

It is worth noting that since the 1977 Florida law is the only state that had completely banned gay and lesbian from adopting children. The legislation of 1977 was passed in the wake of a campaign dubbed, “Save Our Children”. It is the following states Vermont, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California that allow same sex couple adoption. Some states permit single people to adopt, others discourage it. According to Saletan, 2002, the American academy of pediatrics declared that gay, lesbian parents should be allowed to adopt children. This provoked outcries from all quotas. Despite the fact that the proponents have strong arguments supporting the notion that gay parent should be allowed to adopt children, the paper will strongly argue why this is wrong by drawing and presenting ideas in a succinct manner.

Argument against gay adopting kids

In the reflection of the gay adoption, there has been constant dispute on the issue of their custodies. It has widely been believed that the children who have been headed with heterosexual parents are better off by far than the one from single sex especially from the gay parents. There several aspect that have been cited to affect these children (Golombok & Tasker, 1996).

Sexual identity

This is one of the major concern that the children who have been adopted by gay parent experiences difficulties in the development of sexual identity. It has established that children who have been brought up by gay parents are constantly disturbed by gender identity where they are unable to personal identify themselves as male or female. In addition, they are disturbed by gender roles where they cannot be able to distinguish the d4egree to which different culture are regarded as feminine or masculine (Bailey & Dawood, 1998). Moreover, they are reported to get a problem of sexual orientation where they get a lot of problem in choosing the sexual partners. They get confused on whether to have a bisexual, homosexual or heterosexual relationship.

According to the research that was done by Kirkpatrick, he established that though it was very hard

Natural order

According to religion and science, kids are brought to the world by both a man and a woman. For this reason, it is only natural for kids to be raised in a family that has both father and mother as this is the natural order and perverting it is wrong to say the least. For this reason homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children. It is no doubt that human are influenced by a number of factors among them those people we closely associate with such as parents

First of all, we are all influenced as we grow up by our parents which means they may take on the same sexual preferences as there parents. Homosexuality is common place in society but in the natural order of things it is not normal. We are born into this world by man and woman not by the same sex. Secondly, children have a hard enough time trying to figure who they are and how they fit into society as they approach puberty and in to there teens. They don’t need to deal with teasing and ridicule from peers and there parents. Some things should not be allowed. Our society has become a joke and I will definitely petition against this. If you grow up and decide that you want to be gay that’s your business but it is not fair to allow homosexuals to influence innocent children period.

In the reflection of the gay adoption, there has been constant dispute on the issue of their custodies. It has widely been believed that the children who have been headed with heterosexual parents are better off by far than the one from single sex especially from the gay parents. There several aspect that have been cited to affect these children.

Sexual identity

This is one of the major concern that the children who have been adopted by gay parent experiences difficulties in the development of sexual identity. It has established that children who have been brought up by gay parents are constantly disturbed by gender identity where they are unable to personal identify themselves as male or female. In addition, they are disturbed by gender roles where they cannot be able to distinguish the d4egree to which different culture are regarded as feminine or masculine. Moreover, they are reported to get a problem of sexual orientation where they get a lot of problem in choosing the sexual partners. They get confused on whether to have a bisexual, homosexual or heterosexual relationship.

According to the research that was done by Kirkpatrick, he established that though it was very hard to establish these differences, they were notable. He noted that as for the daughters who have been adopted by a gay parent, they tend to engage in rough and tumble play. They were reported to play with such toys as gun that mostly is masculine oriented. The male gender also, though to very little percentage, were found to have feminine orientation as they participated more to the feminine games more than the children who are being taken care by heterosexual parents.

Sexual orientation was another problem that the children from gay parents experienced. From Higgins interview to teenagers, very few teenagers who identified themselves that they are from gay parenthood. Compared to their counterpart from their real parents who were heterosexual, they seemed to have a problem of sexual orientation (Bailey & Dawood, 1998). Even for those who identified themselves to be from such family, they were not confident and suffered inferiority complex.

According to behavior genetic perspective, most of the teenagers who have been brought by gay parents most of them end up being either lesbian or gay still. According to bailey study from the teenagers who were mature enough to give their sexual orientation, out of nineteen teenagers from gay parenthood and similar number from heterosexual parenthood, seven from gay parenthood claimed to be interested in their life to be involved in gay or lesbianism. On the contrary, no among the nineteen from the other divide reported to be interested in such. This shows that moist of those children who have been brought up by either gay or lesbian parents, they prefer copying their parents eventually. In fact according to Bailey report from gay parents interview, 9% of the children they bring up turn to be gay or lesbian.

The interpretation of this study then show that most of the children who are brought up by the gay parents, they suffer from genetic conflict where they are unable to completely orient themselves sexually. Therefore, they mostly grow to be either gay or lesbian.

Social relationship

Children adopted by the gay parents are constantly in loggerhead with social relationship. This is brought by the difficulties that seem to be inherited from their parents. This is because; their parents constantly have difficulties to deal with their peers especially who refute the idea of one being a gay (Gottman, 1990). Anecdotal and first man account explains that children get stigmatized as they are constantly in worries of being asked about their parents’ sexual orientation. This brings a lot of peer relation difficulties to these children and as a result they may withdraw from social relationship. This may result to low performance in their school, low temper control among other antisocial behaviors in search of consoling themselves.

Adult relationship

Children adopted by gay parents seem to change their relationships to the parent depending with the sex of the child. It has been noted though not very pronounced, that male children tend to have a more nasty relationship to female genders as the female children in gay parenthood learn more masculine roles thus behaving like men. This makes females to have more intimacy to male adults than to female adults. The male are also seen to be so dashy towards female adult and have low relationship towards female gender.

Sexual abuse

Most of the children who have been adopted by the gay parents end up being sexually abused. According to statistic, gay parents are seen to be more reliable to perpetrate the children they have adopted than any other marriage partnership. Therefore, children in these families live in heightened fear that they may be abused sexually one day or the other. This makes them to get stigmatized and psychologically tortured.

Behavior problems

Most of the children who are in the gay parenthood, they tend to have a problem in the way they view different behaviors. Most of the behavioral changes are adopted from the parents. Therefore, putting in mind that the parents who are giving them custody are not biologically their parents, they trend to be reluctant to shape their behavior (Gottman, 1990). Most of them do not care much from exposing these children to behaviors that affect their moral. In addition, due to the state of their parental sexual position, they attend to be inquisitive to explore diverse behaviors also that may find them doing things that are not contrary to the community norms.

Self esteem

Due to the stigma that these children get especially from their peers due to their parent sexual orientation, they mostly develop low esteem. They are not capable of completely exploring their potential due to their low self esteem. This makes some of them to develop psychological problem as they feel that they are not complete in their life (Martin, 1993). It is believed that there is that idea of maternal and paternal love that makes the children to deal with different situation in their life which generally lack in these children. These children grow to be weak and vulnerable to various circumstances.

For instance, it is true that boys who are brought up by lesbian parents are taught and adopt feminine characteristics unlike their counterparts raised by heterosexual parents (Bailey, 1995). Similarly, girls who live and brought up by homosexual parents are at higher risk of adopting masculine behaviors. The result is that these individuals will tend to associate more with people from the opposite sex because they will believe that they are not fit to be with members of the same sex like them simply because they exhibit varied characteristics.

Moral judgment

According to Martin, 1993 most of the children brought up by the gay parents have very poor judgment towards moral. Morally, most of the society especially the religious community has been against this act. However, these children have been brought through these environments. This makes them to get confused on the moral judgment. Due to the segregation that most of these children have in their growth stage from their peers, they tend to be ignorant of the moral behaviors that are required in the society. This makes them to get constant criticism due to the way they carry themselves in the society though out of ignorance. It has been proved by psychologists that kids brought up in a single sex parent environment are prone to mockery, prejudice all these and related activities might work against the kid being a good performer in schools as well as other spheres of life.

Locus of control

Their locus of control against most of the vices is low. They are vulnerable to such things as drug abuse especially when they are under pressure to counter their situation. Due to the lifestyle that they have been exposed to from their family setup, their locus of control from their behaviors, feelings, temper among others tend to be lower than for those who are from especially heterosexual parenthood.

On the same note, it is only a husband and a wife who are happily in marriage full of faith that are capable of adequately and satisfactorily answer the persistent question asked by adopted kids, “Who is my dad, or mum, why did they not raise me”? Through such a union, parent can make the kid understand that he/she is loved as well as not all men or women are bad as the notion may be held by the kid (Bailey, 1995)

Conclusion

From the review of the concept of gay parent adopting kids, it is evident that between six and 14 million American children are being raised by gay parents; either lesbians or homosexual. It is only four states that have allowed gay parents to adopt kids. This has been possible for a number of strong reasons brought forth by proponents of the phenomenon. Most of the American states no longer hold back the consent of accepting peoples’ sexual orientation. It is worth noting that the courts as well as state agencies put in practice a principle of best interest of the child standard in order to arrive at a solution.

However, in light of this, the paper has brought forth a number of arguments that are against gay parents adopting kids. Among the concrete reason I believe that gay parent should not be allowed top adopt kids include the following; according to religion and science, kids are brought to the world by both a man and a woman so there is no need of going against natural order, kids raised in gay relation have difficulties in coping with sexual life as they will in most cases be influenced by what the parent do, encounter social problems, exposed to social ill such as drug use, violence among others.