I don't have children, I don't want children, and I don't "get"
children.
Some of my friends have children. I like their children best at
two stages of their lives:
(1) When they're small enough that they come in their own
special carrying cases and stay put in them.
(2) When they're big enough that they don't visit at all, but
instead do their own thing while their parents do grownup
stuff.
In between those stages, children tend to run amok, which makes
me nervous. My house is full of sharp and heavy objects. I did not
put them there to deter children-honest!-but I am more comfortable
when children (or their parents) are thus deterred. It's safer for
everyone involved.
Having said that, I admire people who have children. I have a
flourishing life largely because I was raised by terrific parents.
When others choose to make similar sacrifices, I find it immensely
praiseworthy.
Which may be why opposition to gay adoption makes me so
angry.
Mind you, I am not by nature an angry person. Regular readers of
this column know that I go out of my way to understand my
opponents. Rick Warren compares homosexuality to incest? Well, what
did he mean by the comparison? What was the context? What's
motivating him?
Attack gay parents, however, and my first impulse is to pick up
one of the aforementioned sharp and heavy objects and hurl it
across the room.
That's partly because these attacks criticize adults who are
doing a morally praiseworthy thing. And it's partly because the
attacks hurt innocent children, toward whom I feel oddly
protective, despite my general aversion.
Back in November, a Miami Dade circuit judge ruled that
Florida's law banning gays from adopting is unconstitutional. This
is very good news.
The Florida ban took effect in 1977, the era of Anita Bryant and
Jerry Falwell. We've come a long way since then-or so I'd like to
think.
Yet the Florida religious right is trotting out the same old
arguments, repeatedly insisting that having both a mother and
father is "what's best for children."
Let's try addressing this calmly.
Every mainstream child health and welfare organization has
challenged this premise. The American Academy of Pediatrics. The
Child Welfare League of America. The National Association of Social
Workers. The American Academy of Family Physicians-you name it.
These are not gay-rights organizations. These are mainstream
child-welfare organizations. And they all say that children of gay
parents do just as well as children of straight parents.
But let's suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that they're
all wrong. Let us grant-just for argument's sake-that what's best
for children is having both a mother and a father.
Even with that major concession, our opponents' conclusion
doesn't follow. The problem is that their position makes the
hypothetical "best" the enemy of the actual "good".
Indeed, when discussing adoption, it's a bit misleading to ask
what's "best" for children.
In the abstract, what's "best" for children-given our opponents'
own premises-is to not need adoption in the first place, but
instead to be born to loving heterosexual parents who are able and
willing to raise them.
So what we're really seeking is not the "best"-that option's
already off the table-but the "best available."
What the 1977 Florida law entails is that gay persons are NEVER
the best available. And that's a difficult position for even a
die-hard homophobe to maintain.
It's difficult to maintain in the face of thousands of children
awaiting permanent homes.
It's difficult to maintain in the face of gay individuals and
couples who have selflessly served as foster parents (which they're
permitted to do even in Florida).
It's difficult to maintain in light of all the other factors
that affect children's well-being, such as parental income,
education, stability, relationships with extended family,
neighborhood of residence, and the like-not to mention their
willingness and preparedness to take on dependents.
What the Florida ban does is to single out parental sexual
orientation and make it an absolute bar to adoption, yet leave all
of the other factors to be considered on a "case-by-case," "best
available" basis.
Meanwhile, thousands of children languish in state care.
For the sake of those children, I resist my urge to hurl heavy
objects at the Florida "family values" crowd. Instead, I ask them
sharply and repeatedly:
Do you really believe that it is better for children to languish
in state care than to be adopted by loving gay people?
Those are the real-world alternatives. Those are the stakes. And
our opponents' unwillingness to confront them is an abysmal moral
failure.