If the parents are able to be good parents, the kids do need to be with them.

If that’s the case, the kids shouldn’t be available for adoption anyway, so I really don’t see how this relates.

If the parents are able to be good parents, the kids do need to be with them. Although there are admitted problems with the foster-care/adoption system, there’s a natural bond that is the reason that “family reunification” is a primary goal today.

A kid’s need for their own mom & dad, or if necessary the closest approximation, is kind of related to the issue of gay adoption in my opinion.

cs89 on July 16, 2008 at 1:31 PM

I keep forgetting how seriously some of you treat these comment sections as though it’s a nationally televised debate, requiring expert knowledge on all subjects before posting something.

I have no idea what the stats are for orphanages, but I do know that many kids who are taken from their able-bodied parents aren’t eligible for adoption and are only there temporarily.

By the time a kid with actual, living parents can be given to someone else to raise, the parents are generally so incapacitated in one form or another, either due to drug use, jail time or some other failing of their own, that they may as well be dead.

So sorry I took the cheap shot that was less accurate. I can see how it makes such a big difference in an argument about homosexual adoptions.

So my question still stands. Are you or platypus interested in giving the children back?

Other people’s children, who have been deprived of their natural parents.
Generally by God.

Are you proposing giving them back?

Esthier on July 16, 2008 at 12:11 PM

Do you actually believe that most kids in “orphanages” today are true orphans, with natural parents who are deceased?

Please do a little research before stating such a fallacy. Most kids in institutions today, or who are in foster care, have living natural parents. They’re “generally” available for adoption because of removal from their home due to abuse, neglect, lack of stability, etc.

While true orphans (had 2 natural parents, who died together or subsequently to one another leaving the child “orphaned) do exist, they are a small percentage of the number available for adoption.

Esthier on July 16, 2008 at 12:09 PM

Ha. I love it.

Other people’s children, who have been deprived of their natural parents.

Generally by God.

Are you proposing giving them back?

There are no “gay people” – there are only people who repeatedly perform homosexual acts.

OK then, problem solved. There are no “gay people” and as such no “gays” exist to prevent from allowing adoption.

That’s a little more liberal than I was going to go with it, but whatever.

If two gay people have proven to be in a stable relationship and passed all the background checks adoption agencies require, then I do think they should be given preference over single parents.

Esthier on July 16, 2008 at 10:13 AM

There are no “gay people” – there are only people who repeatedly perform homosexual acts. They can change at any time, and many do.

How would they prove they are in a stable relationship? Joint ownership of property? Joint bank accounts? What?

Putting aside that point, the problem with homosexual couplings being recognized as equivalent to marriage is that marriage is a cultural construct based on natural biological functions. It furthers and develops what is present naturally and is part of our human design.

Homosexual couplings, even if repeated every day for years, do not build on any natural design or survival instinct. Objectively, such behavior cannot produce what marriage produces – replication of another being in its own image.

The only rational reason for “gays” to adopt is to obtain children that they cannot obtain from their relationship.

Other people’s children, who have been deprived of their natural parents.

This “debate” could not happen if there wasn’t a big source of funding creating the “problem” to be solved. Homosexuals are not even close to being optimal parents because their behavior and values are antithetical to the natural order of human generational immortality design.

In many states, singles can. I can’t imagine why a single who lives with someone else couldn’t.

amerpundit on July 15, 2008 at 10:42 PM

Maybe the issue then becomes whether they both can adopt the child or whether only one person will be able to. Basically, with one person the mother and the other just the boyfriend.

It would make sense if there was reason to doubt the stability of the relationship. It wouldn’t make sense to put the orphan through a custody proceeding unnecessarily.

McCain’s got this election won.

JetBoy on July 15, 2008 at 11:01 PM

I don’t know. He’s only a man, struggling to gain the trust of his own party. Obama’s a god who convinces fainting swarms of women and Chris Matthews that he can heal the world.

One size doesn’t fit all!

FloridaBill on July 15, 2008 at 11:21 PM

Exactly. And that seems to be the point of having separate, united states. It’s not perfect, but I love it.

sabbott on July 16, 2008 at 9:03 AM

The problem is that single moms and dads have already been given the opportunity to adopt. How is that any better than letting two moms or two dads adopt?

Despite my opinion on gay marriage, I agree with that. If two gay people have proven to be in a stable relationship and passed all the background checks adoption agencies require, then I do think they should be given preference over single parents.

It’s not as if he just pulled federalism in to duck the issue. He takes a federalist position on marriage, as well, though openly takes heat for his opposition to gay marriage.

amerpundit on July 15, 2008 at 10:25 PM

Actually, he did pull in federalism to duck the issue. He did the same thing on drilling. He’s more than happy to keep ANWR shut through federal mandate but he punts to the states on drilling in California and Florida, probably knowing someone like Schwarzenegger or a federal judge will keep anything from happening. It was a way for him to get on the right side of the issue that didn’t cost him anything; oh yes, I’m in favor of ‘x’ policy; let someone else decide. I’m convinced he does that on issues he doesn’t care about. He’s been consistent on Iraq; he’ll give the entire country the finger all day on immigration but on drilling, gay adoption he punts. Why not a federalist position on immigration? Um…because they might not do things the way La Raza wants like McCain will? But securing borders is a federal function; um yeah, and they’ve done SUCH a great job with it. He’s no federalist. He’s a hack juggling various constituencies. You guys stuck us with this loser; don’t try to make him something he isn’t. He’s no statesman.

JetBoy on July 15, 2008 at 11:01 PM

Yes, Jetboy, he probably does. But only because the democrats couldn’t field a worse candidate unless they created one in a lab. Or just ran an inanimate object. ‘McCain vs. Old Dump Truck’. Probably still would have been a close race. Let’s hope you have something to gloat about in 4 years…because I have a bad feeling McCain is going to do a number on the economy that will make us look back to $4.00 a gallon gas with nostalgia.

The government always does a swell job with everything else that they try to remedy, why not let them engineer the family structure now?

sabbott on July 16, 2008 at 9:03 AM

You seem to have gotten this backwards. The “orphanages” and foster care system are the government. Prospective adopters are private individuals.

I trust individual Americans of whatever demographic much more than I trust government bureaucracies. Why don’t you?

Even the pedophiles?

ThackerAgency on July 15, 2008 at 10:40 PM

Whatever agenda it is you represent, ThackerAgency, you’ve thoroughly discredited it. Nice work.

If gays or singles want to give a loving, safe home to an otherwise unwanted child I’m all for it. Good for them.

Well, since gay marriage is now legal in CA (due to our state not listening to the will of its inhabitants,) then it’s logical to think that gay adoption is now a newly-opened loophole.

MB007 on July 15, 2008 at 11:12 PM

“Newly Opened”? Have you ever been to California? Or watched TV?

Who didn’t already know that gay people adopt all the time in California?

Make no mistake about this – if the states had to foot the entire costs of removing children from parents, the number of removed children would be half or a third what it is now.

This is big business – selling other people’s children.

The evangelicals have destroyed the Republican party. Who gives a crap, people. If they’re qualified and good people…let them adopt. Pretty simple. It’s 2008, let’s get with the times.

therightwinger on July 16, 2008 at 1:33 AM

where to start?

You may remember that the evangelicals had quite a bit to do with the rise of the modern GOP, as in the 70′s the party was pretty much on the ropes (minorities in House, Senate, Carter in the WH in ’76). While there are a variety of reasons why there has been an R in the WH for 20 of the past 28 years, the evangelical vote was at least a contributing factor. The evangelical vote also contributed to GOP gains in Congress. We will probably disagree as to why they lost the majority, but my opinion is that they moved away from the conservatism of the majority, and allowed corruption and a lack of fiscal discipline to undermine a message that appealed to a majority of voters that included a significant number of evangelical Republicans.

As to who “gives a crap” about adoption policy, there is no more central issue to the future of civilization than how one’s children are raised. According to the natural order of things, it takes a man and a woman to conceive a child. In my mind, that’s a hint that maybe they should both be involved in raising it.

A mountain of social science, the world’s major religions, common sense and observation tell us that children have the best chance to thrive in married, mother-and-father-based families. Why not give kids the best possible chance at a normal, healthy family life instead of using them to make a cultural statement?

And besides all that–I just don’t like the idea of gay parents bringing up their kids to be gay.

Gabriel Malor on July 16, 2008 at 12:32 AM

Many thanks for your clarification.

Well I believe that Mr. Malor was talking about gay adoption being legal in 49 states, after you said you thought that single adoptions were allowed in many states.

I may have not been clear about that. Adoption by individuals is legal in 49 states, and that includes adoption by straight individuals or adoption by gay individuals. The only state which has law that explicitly prohibits gay individuals from adopting is Florida. There is at least one additional state which allows gay individuals to adopt, but explicitly prohibit gay couples from adopting (Mississippi). But I’m probably missing a few.

Let’s only let the conservative gay couples adopt.

Problem solved.

It’s Vintage, Duh on July 15, 2008 at 10:27 PM

Haaaaaaaa!!!!!

Yannow…I might actually consider voting for McCain if he had the balls to say that…..LOL