Gay Adoption Like many issues involving sexual o...

Gay Adoption

Like many issues involving sexual orientation, adoption by same-sex couples tends to be a controversial issue. Critics of the practice have long argued that children are harmed when they are not raised in the presence of both a father and a mother. Others have argued that exposure to homosexuality at a young age can potentially harm a child's development and maturity regarding gender roles or sexuality in general.

Supporters of adoption by same-sex couples argue that loving same-sex couples can be just as effective parents as opposite-sex couples. They say that statistics do not indicate that children raised by same-sex couples are any more likely to be affected by social problems. While some studies have shown that children raised by same-sex couples are likely to have sightly different views about gender roles than their peers, supporters note that such children are not more likely to be gay or lesbian themselves later in life.

The American Psychological Association supports adoption by same-sex couples in its policy statement of July 28 & 30, 2004

Adoption by same-sex couples is legal in Andorra, Belgium, England and Wales, Iceland, the Netherlands, Sweden, South Africa, and Spain. Denmark, Germany and Norway allow "stepchild-adoption" so that the partner in a civil union can adopt the natural (or sometimes even adopted) child of his partner. In the Republic of Ireland and some other countries, individual persons, whether heterosexual/homosexual, cohabiting/single may apply for adoption.

In February 2006, France's Court of Cassation ruled that both partners in a same-sex relationship can have parental rights over one partner's biological child. The result came from a case where a woman tried to give parental rights of her two daughters to her partner whom she was in a civil union with.[2]

On June 2, 2006 the Icelandic Parliament voted for a proposal accepting adoption, parenting and assisted insemination treatment for same-sex couples on the same basis as heterosexual couples. No member of the parliament voted against the proposal. The law went into effect on June 27, 2006.

In the United States, only one state, Florida, totally bans gay adoption.


Nine states allow for openly gay and lesbian couples to adopt jointly:
California
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Ohio
Vermont
Washington
Wisconsin
as well as D.C.
It is more common for one partner to adopt and then for the second to apply as the second parent, or co-parent. Second parent adoptions creates a second legally recognized parent for the adoptive children. This is the only way for gay couples to both become legal parents of their children. Second parent adoptions have been granted by the courts in twenty-one states as well as D.C. These states include - Alabama, Alaska, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington.

The bulk of evidence to date indicates that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are no more likely to become homosexual than children raised by heterosexuals. As one researcher put it. "If heterosexual parenting is insufficient to ensure that children will also be heterosexual, then there is no reason to conclude that children of homosexuals also will be gay."

Studies asking the children of gay fathers to express their sexual orientation showed the majority of children to be heterosexual, with the proportion of gay offspring similar to that of a random sample of the population. An assessment of more than 300 children born to gay or lesbian parents in 12 different samples shows no evidence of "significant disturbances of any kind in the development of sexual identity among these individuals".