Passage of Prop 8: Breaking up families

According to Dan Savage’s editorial from the New York Times two weeks ago (it took me some time to get to this… quite frankly, I was worried about making my point carelessly about this sensitive subject.  And, as my five day post drought would attest to, it’s been very busy time for me).

The New York Times:

“Florida, Arizona and, most heartbreaking, California, where Proposition 8 stripped same-sex couples of their right to wed. Eighteen thousand same-sex couples were legally married in California this past summer and fall; their marriages are now in limbo.

…

Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents… there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

…

Most ominous, once “pro-family” groups start arguing that gay couples are unfit to raise children we might adopt, how long before they argue that we’re unfit to raise those we’ve already adopted? If lesbian couples are unfit to care for foster children, are they fit to care for their own biological children?”

It’s a very short editorial (I think I quoted about half of it right there) and I recommend it to those interested in the subject.

I find myself very sympathetic to Mr. Savage’s views and his own sympathies, as well as the concerns of children growing up in the system for the want of adoptive parents,  but I do want to focus on one commend — and one point — in this debate that I feel is neglected in this editorial and in the debate in general.

That there are churches and motivated individuals willing to volunteer their time and money to defeat the prospects of homosexual couples marrying, adopting, or even existing (to be perfectly frank) shows clearly the animus held by a large number of Americans against homosexuals.  This, I believe, is impossible to ignore.

As much as we believe that children are innocent of prejudice, free from the biases of their parents, they are not.  They may not hold the views with the same intensity or cognitive consistency, but anti-gay views are not merely held by adults: they tend to diffuse to their children.

… “once “pro-family” groups start arguing that gay couples are unfit to raise children we might adopt, how long before they argue that we’re unfit to raise those we’ve already adopted?”

I don’t believe a gay couple is any less capable than a straight couple of raising a child, and I certainly feel that a gay couple would build a far better home for a child than the state, but I believe our society is unfit to raise a gay family.

As much as the world has changed for the better in its acceptance of gay couples and gay families, it is far from the point of painless acceptance.  Living in Toronto, one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world (“Canada’s hottest gay city”), I see that there still exists a fair bit of quiet homophobia.  From what I remember as a kid in Toronto only twenty years ago, I fear the daily tortures that might find a target in the child of a same-sex couple.  Memories of seeing the fat kid relentlessly made fun of, the kid with the weird clothes, or the kid slowest to pick up the newest lesson, I wonder what might await the kid with two mommies or two daddies, should his or her family circumstance come to light?

Eventually, it seems gay and lesbian couples will be accepted exactly as heterosexual couples.  I can think of many groups of people that do so today, and their numbers probably count in the millions just in Canada alone.  And that day cannot come fast enough.  But children should not be the vanguard of that movement to shift social opinion.  If adults wish to change social opinion of homosexuals, more power to them.  But I fear adoption puts a child into the situation of being a target for a maligned group.  As unfair as the world is to homosexuals, I do not think I can support the idea of children inheriting the abuse their parents already find themselves the recipients of.

In time, I’m sure this will no longer be an issue.  But as of right now, more power to gay couples, and more power to gay individuals as well.  But I cannot say I want that power to extend into adoption.

[I understand many will disagree with me on this point and I welcome and appreciate the correction or the debate]

… and the cow goes moo