Gay adoption ban punishes children

By: Helena Poleo
No one can say their family is perfect and few people can say their families are even normal. Nobody comes from a picture perfect home, with the white picket fence, mother wearing an apron, dad in his office attire, brown dog in the yard and 2.5 kids in the living room. Most of us have experienced fighting parents, possibly broken homes and hard economic times. Our families aren’t perfect, yet most of us are lucky: we have a family. As complicated as they might be, our parents or guardians worry about us and watch over us, trying to give us love as best they can.

But not everyone is this lucky. Some children are raised in orphanages because their parents, for one reason or another, are not able to raise them themselves. These kids grow up never knowing what a family is like, what it means to get Christmas gifts especially selected for them, or what it means to be tucked in at night. These kids would give anything to be adopted. They would not question their new parents’ sexuality. They would simply be grateful for having their undivided attention and love, to feel wanted.

Ask anyone who grew up in an orphanage and they’ll tell you how they prayed every night to be adopted, no matter what their new parents were like. The sad truth is that there are many more children without homes than parents willing to give them homes.

Florida is the only state with laws forbidding gay and lesbian adoptions. However, gay couples are allowed to become foster parents. Why the contradiction? Apparently, this means that they’re good enough to be foster parents, but not to become full-fledged parents.That is why lifting the ban on adoptions by gay couples in Florida is so important.

What it comes down to is that there are millions of children who need parents and the state is telling them they can’t have them. The state is telling the kids that they can’t have a home, that they can’t be loved, and that they must spend the rest of their lives in an orphanage.

It is very clear that the state must have the wrong idea of what the gay population really looks like. State officials must think that all gays do is party in South Beach.

I’m sure a lot of them do, right next to many more straight South Floridians. Just like straight couples, the gay couples that apply for adoption are nothing like the partiers that officials have in mind. Most couples, gay or straight, that apply for adoption feel that they are ready to be parents. They are in a committed relationship, make a decent living and feel stable enough to bring a child into their lives.

Adopting a child isn’t like getting pregnant. It isn’t a random act caused by a moment of heated passion. From what I gather from speaking to couples who have adopted, adoption is a long, hard road marked bybureaucracy, soul-searching and money-spending.

When a couple decides to undertake such a difficult journey, it is because they are willing to love the child and raise it with the love and care it deserves. It is unfair to punish children who need homes because of the stereotypes legislators believe about gay couples.

Truth be told, if a gay couple wants a child badly enough, they will find some way of getting it. But that will not help the kids in the orphanages at all. They’ll still be there night after night, praying for someone to adopt them, to love them.

Meanwhile, perfectly good parents will be turned away for no other reason than that they love someone the state officials don’t agree with. In the end, the children are the ones being punished.