Homosexual Couples and Adoption
Written By Khwahish Khurana
Introduction
Adoption is a ray of hope in the life of those couples who are incapable of biologically producing their own child. Through adoption, an orphanage gets home and the couple gets a child. But just imagine, a couple being denied to adopt and be tagged as incompetent to raise a child because of their sexual orientation. This kind of discrimination is very common against homosexual couples and the adoption rights being given to them are termed as “Morally Wrong” by society.
Adoption For Homosexual Couple
Homosexuality or people who are part of the LGBTQ community have faced a lot of hatred in general, just because they are not how society expects them to be. Society’s negative attitude and behaviour make the life of homosexual people a lot more difficult. They are treated differently, looked down upon, bullied and in the worst-case scenarios have to experience violence as well which would leave such a horrible impact on their lives. They are even denied jobs or are fired due to their sexual orientation.
Homosexuality is often linked to a state of mental illness that can be cured by some sort of treatment. Likewise, there is a myth that homosexual people are child molesters. Society’s mindsets are occupied with such myths. Additionally, there are only a few countries that do allow gay marriage and give them the right to adopt. Even in such countries, homosexual couples face a hard time in adopting a child due to society’s nonacceptance.
Lynne Elvins, the first gay couple to be approved in Bristol, UK IN 2004 explained, what is it like to adopt being a homosexual couple. She pointed out how people make assumptions about gender roles or panic about putting children into a gay lifestyle. Moreover, she highlighted the constant fear of society that a gay couple will eventually turn the adopted child into a gay.
We as a society, have always pictured a man and woman when saying the term “couple” and so the same-sex couple is not a concept which people are habitual of. Society has divided jobs according to genders and even in today’s time, the mindsets haven’t changed. But in fact, the evolution of law has made jobs gender-neutral, and hence, associating jobs with gender only depicts a narrow mindset.
Opponents of same-sex marriage often argue that children benefit from having a mother and a father and same-sex marriage should not be legalized but paradoxically, a child abuse report in 2015 showed over 1500 children die each year in the US from child abuse and neglect which is very common even globally as well – ‘children raised by heterosexual couples. In the US, a review comparing 33 studies concluded there was no research that backed up the widely held conviction that the gender of parents matters for a child well being.
Moreover, the Australian Psychological Society stated that “it is the quality of parenting that matters.” Such opponents also claim that the child may face discrimination from his fellow mates because it is being raised by homosexual couples but no reports show or approve of such a thing.
Conclusion
The evolution of law has brought a change in society. Laws have made it somewhat easy for homosexual couples to adopt but the societal pressure still makes it difficult. The only thing a child wants and needs, especially in the early stage in life, is just love and affection, and that the gender of parents really has nothing to do with it.
No reports or stats can claim the myths or assumptions to be true such as homosexual people being child molesters or they would turn the child into gay etc. The narrow mindset of society is something that needs to be changed so that such kind of discrimination could be eliminated and the world becomes a better place for everyone.
By putting religion, culture, social values as a defence mechanism, people try to get away by not being okay or rather opposing the homosexual couple’s adoption rights. These myths which have been talked about in the article have occupied the minds of people and have made it difficult for them to accept homosexuality. We as a society need to accept and respect people’s uniqueness, rather than suppressing them with our thoughts and values.
Adoption rights or any other rights which any other person has should also be given to homosexual people without any second thoughts. The parenting ability of homosexual couples shouldn’t be judged on the basis of their genders as there are a lot of single parents who have raised their children wonderfully. Hence, homosexual couples should be given equal rights and opportunities as heterosexual couples.
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