Zumbro 1 Frances Zumbro Dr.

Connie White English 115 21 November 2013 Better Love, Than None Imagine a child trapped in the foster-care system; moving from home to home and seeing a whirlwind of faces without getting a chance to form any real connections with those who you live with. One would imagine they would welcome loving parents of any kind, even if they were same-sex, but there are an unfortunate number of people who disagree. No one seems to take in consideration the side of a child. For me, being raised by two mothers my whole life has not affected me in any specific way in regards to my sexual preferences or orientation; it has actually opened my mind to be a more accepting person. answered Hailey Stillman-Riddle, a student at Cal State Northridge in response to being asked how she has been influenced by her adoptive same-sex parents raised. Miss Stillman-Riddle can testify to the experiences of being raised by a same-sex couple. My mothers have provided a supportive environment for both me and my sister growing up. There have been multiple studies concerning the influence of parents sexuality in regards to their parenting methods, and, more often than not, the results have learned in favor of same-sex adoption. Despite the positive conclusion reached by these studies, society is still unable to agree on whether same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt and the topic has remained controversial. Same-sex adoption should be universally accepted because children should be given the opportunity to be raised in a healthy home regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents.

Zumbro 2 There are too many children in need of parents to justify the discriminatory behavior of adoption agencies preventing same-sex couples from adopting. Their negligence in performing their reasons for existing only deprives foster kids and would-be parents of the happiness of belonging to a complete family. AdoptUsKids, an organization based on the U.S. whose purpose is to get children out of foster care without being adopted. Today there are 104,000 children in foster care waiting to be adopted ranging in age from less than a year old to 21. ( AdoptUSKids) This statement shows that there is an unacceptably large number of children waiting to find stable homes. Most of these kids have grown up in foster home, moving household to household. These children could be living with loving and supportive adoptive parents, but are kept in the system because those parents do not match adoption agencies prejudice opinion of what a parent should be. Why should these children be kept from joining real families because of the ignorance and juvenile stubbornness of adults who should know better? When it come to parenting, the primary concern of adoption agencies is that the child has a father figure and a mother figure-not that they are happy and loved in their new home.According to History of Transracial Adoption, an article by Erica Newman for the journal American Indian Quarterly, an adopted child needs the extra support of a grounded and structured family to fill the void of initial abandonment (Newman). It does not state that the structured family required a mother and a father-only that it must be able to provide the comfort the child needs. A same-sex couple is just as qualified as a heterosexual couple by this definition. There have been studies that show that there are differences between children who are raised by same-sex couples and heterosexual couples. According to Ana Martin-Ancel, who wrote this article Adoption by Same-Sex Parents, for the Pediatric Journal The scarce data available suggest that there is a difference between nonheterosexual and heterosexual parenting.

Zumbro 3 Unfortunately, ideological and social pressures may be constraining the research in this field. Its political weight regarding child custody or planned lesbigay parenthood through fertility services or adoption is so high that the position of researchers may be influencing how studies are being designed, conducted, and interpreted. (Martin-Ancel) What Martin is trying to say is that yes, there are differences when you raise a child in with heterosexual parents and same-sex parents, but there is always going to be a difference is parenting styles between every kind of family and because of this ideological system, there is no way to have certain, reliable studies to show the effects on a child raised by a same-sex couple. Based on this, there is little evidence to support the claim that same-sex couples raise their children differently from heterosexual couples; the opposition fails to take into consideration the ideological, social, and political factors that connect these experiments. Same-Sex parents who are looking to adopt, are more open to interracial adoption. In the article, Adoption Option by Dan Allen in The Advocate journal, Allen tells us of all of the hoops that same-sex adopting couples have to go through in order to have a successful adoption. They are open to international adoption for the most part because that is a very common way to adopt. A same-sex couple that was interview in the article said, We know we don't have to look alike to be a family. ( Alen) This is just an example of a family who went through extensive lengths to adopt. It also tells us that these couples are not looking for anything specific to make up their family, but that they are just looking to gives any child a strong, loving and supportive home. (Allen) There are always more positives that come out of interracial adoption. You are now showing your children that you do not have to be the same or look the same to be a family and you are teaching them from multiple cultural perspectives.

Zumbro 4 The adoption system is a long and messy processed filled with paperwork and it take a few years, in some cases, to finalize. For Same-sex couples who are trying to adopt, this process becomes ten times more of a struggle. One main factor that is holding same-sex couples back from addotion is the the child's original parent or their current foster parents fear of the child being incorrectly raised by a gay couple. In Dan Allens article, Adoption Option he talks about the struggle that lesbian couples face when trying to adopt boys. "We ran into people doubting that we would be able to raise boys," Laura Rede says. "We had originally set out to adopt our daughter Shanika as well as her three brothers." But the boys' foster mothers stood in the way of their being adopted. "They had the stereotype that all lesbians are lesbians because we hate men, and if we raised boys, we would raise them hating themselves because we would be giving them a negative idea of men." People tend to throw any reasoning that they can, rational or not, to stop same-sex couples adoption. People never tend to weigh in the fact that the children need homes and that if the way they are going to get the support they need is through a same-sex couple adopting them, then their should be no reason to stop them . Looking back at the adoption system as a whole, it include paperwork, processing, the input of the biological parents, adoption agencies, foster home and the adopting parents, but no one really seems to take the time to weigh in on a childs option. These children are looking to find a place they can call home and a family that they can safely and smoothly become a part of as if they were there the whole time. People tend to think that the only way children are going to get to this feeling is through a mother and a father, and not through a same-sex couple. But if a same-sex couple is willing a ready to adopt children through any means of a system, whether it be international or through foster-care, why should they be denied this opportunity. These samesex parents would have to meet the same requirement that hetertosexul adopting parents have to

Zumbro 5 meet by agency requirements, and if they are well qualified there is no reason to not let them adopt. A child needs a home, with one or two parents and a family to support, this has nothing to do with the sexual orientation, race or gender of the parents. Love is love. Better love than none.

Works Cited

Zumbro 6 Allen, Dan. The Adoption Option. The Advocate. 864 (2002): 42-50. Proquest. Web. 9 December. 2013. Bernheim, Gilles. "Homosexual Marriage, Parenting, and Adoption." First Things 231 (2013): pg41. Conroy, Michelle. Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 45.5 (2004): Pages 643644 Web. 9 December.2013 Martin-Ancel, Ana. Adoption by Same-Sex Parents. PEDIATRICS Vol. 110 No. 2 August 1, 2002 pp. 419 -420 1. Meezan, William. Gay Marriage, Same-Sex Parenting and Americas Children. ERIC. Volume 15 n2 pg.97-115. Fall 2005.