I see at least one problem with gays getting married. If you allow them to get married, eventually you'll have to decide if they should be allowed to adopt children. And this is where I am not sure what the decision should be. It was somebody on this forum who rightly pointed me to the fact that kids growing up surrounded by gays are themselves more likely to turn gay. Why is that? Before we know the answer to that, I would prefer if we could postpone the decision on allowing gays to adopt kids.
This is your quote George. If you are not implying that gay is somehow an inferior outcome than why do we have to wait until we understand why gay parents lead to more gay children ( your contention not mine) before we allow gays to marry and have children? If gay and heterosexual children are to be viewed equally then the cause may be of academic interest but should not have any bearing on whether we give same sex couples the right to adopt kids.
As an aside, I don't know this with any degree of certainty, but I do believe that same sex parents are already allowed to adopt children.
That's right, and there are 40,000 children in California alone that are being raised by gay couples. A lot of those children have been adopted and many of them were among the many children that heterosexual couples didn't want because they weren't the "right" color or they had physical or mental "defects". Not allowing gay couples to adopt meant that the "unadoptable" children we're relegated to the foster care system or group homes where they often got very poor care and little guidance.
I should also point out, though it's a shame that it's necessary, that a lot of kids being raised by gay couples are children who
are the biological children of one of the gay couple. Many Lesbian women have had children in a failed marriage to a man and others have chosen to be artificilially inseminated. Some Lesbian couples choose as the sperm donor a brother of the other partner so there is a genetic link between them. Males, too, have children by a failed marriage or a birth while they were dating a woman but were unmarried, just as heterosexual men do. It would be interesting to know if gay men are less likely to abandon their "inconvenient" offspring than heterosexual men are.
I know a gay male couple who adopted a baby who was HIV positive--one that no heterosexual couple wanted. One of the couple is an MD. The child receives excellent care and is now a healthy and well adjusted 10 year old. What his fate might have been in the foster care system is anyone's guess. But, hey, let's continue to keep gays from adopting and keep the population pure.
Lois
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