Ohio legislators are trying to make their mark with a newly proposed bill aimed at restricting homosexual or bi-sexual adults from foster parenting or adopting children. Although this bill is not likely to pass, it still gives reason to pause and consider: should homosexual adults be allowed to parent?
Studies, it is said, have shown that the “optimal” environment in which to raise a child is one with a mother and a father. These studies have come under fire for their accuracy. But let’s, for a moment, say they are accurate. How many children of straight parents are raised in such “optimal” environments? Divorce rates are enormous, subsequent divorce rates after the first are even higher. Many straight parents are raising their children alone. And in many situations, the children fare better from having a healthy divorced family than they did in an abusive, intact (but straight) family. Optimal is not realistic. Should we also ban single parenthood? Divorced parenthood? Of course not.
The solution is not to strive for what is optimal but to alter society to accept what is realistic and provide support and resources for what we have, not what we think would be ideal. If what we have is a large number of homosexual adults who crave parenthood, let’s provide resources to make that possible. If what we have are parents who are single and raising their children alone, let’s provide resources to make that possible.
An aspect that rarely gets mentioned in the “gay parenting” controversy is that when a homosexual adult chooses to parent it is an active choice. It is a well-researched, well-thought-out, much-planned-for and sometimes very financially costly choice. Compare that to the millions of unplanned pregnancies that occur every year to married, straight individuals that society fully embraces as “meant to be”. The parents may not have the financial means to support a(nother) child, the parents may not have the emotional stability to handle a “surprise” to their family and marriage, they may not be prepared to give up what they have to undertake the gruelingly self-less job of raising a child. But they are still considered the “optimal”? Does this seem way off base to anyone else?
The bottom line, here is that the children should be our first priority. Is it really more vital that a child grow up in the foster care system than grow up in a happy home with a loving parent or two, regardless of the gender?