by Kilian Melloy
Edge Boston
A bill now before the Utah state legislature would ensure that the door to adoption by qualified gay and lesbian parents would not be slammed shut on children needing good homes and gay or lesbian prospective parents looking to provide care and family to children with nowhere else to go.
The bill is intended as a redress for the current state law that bans adoption by unmarried prospective parents. Given the state’s constitutional ban on allowing gay and lesbian families to marry, that is tantamount to barring adoption by gay and lesbian prospective parents.
The state now has over 450 children in need of placement in good homes. The state’s legislature, however, might prefer to see children remain in the system rather than to allow them to be placed in homes headed by same-sex couples.
The reason: the Mormon faith officially promotes the raising of children in homes with both a mother and a father.
Not addressed by that is the question of whether state care is an adequate substitute for a home life offering a single parent or two loving parents of the same gender.
The legislation is the project of state Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, a salt Lake City Democrat, who was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune article as saying of same-sex parents, "These folks meet every single other criteria that’s listed for adoption and fostering.
"The only thing that’s different is the relationship between the adults."
Added Rep. Chavez-Houck, "There’s a very big body of research that shows that [the parents’] sexual orientation does not affect the well-being of a child."
Edge Boston
A bill now before the Utah state legislature would ensure that the door to adoption by qualified gay and lesbian parents would not be slammed shut on children needing good homes and gay or lesbian prospective parents looking to provide care and family to children with nowhere else to go.The bill is intended as a redress for the current state law that bans adoption by unmarried prospective parents. Given the state’s constitutional ban on allowing gay and lesbian families to marry, that is tantamount to barring adoption by gay and lesbian prospective parents.
The state now has over 450 children in need of placement in good homes. The state’s legislature, however, might prefer to see children remain in the system rather than to allow them to be placed in homes headed by same-sex couples.
The reason: the Mormon faith officially promotes the raising of children in homes with both a mother and a father.
Not addressed by that is the question of whether state care is an adequate substitute for a home life offering a single parent or two loving parents of the same gender.
The legislation is the project of state Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, a salt Lake City Democrat, who was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune article as saying of same-sex parents, "These folks meet every single other criteria that’s listed for adoption and fostering.
"The only thing that’s different is the relationship between the adults."
Added Rep. Chavez-Houck, "There’s a very big body of research that shows that [the parents’] sexual orientation does not affect the well-being of a child."
Read the rest here.
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