1. What if married mom and dad homes aren’t available? Isn’t it better to at least put a child somewhere?
2. What about single people? Don’t they sometimes get to adopt?
3. Isn’t your position based on religious hang-ups about homosexuality being a sin, a view not everyone shares?
4. Do you really believe that the state has the right to determine morality?
5. Aren’t some couples who never marry still committed to one another in stable relationships?
6. Isn’t the requirement of marriage as evidence of commitment unfair since homosexuals are not permitted to marry?
7. Doesn’t the research show that there is no difference between families that are headed by a married mom and dad and families headed by same sex couples?
8. Is it legally permissible for adoption law to reflect a preference for different types of relationships?
1. What if married mom and dad homes aren’t available? Isn’t it better to at least put a child somewhere?
No, it’s never better to put children just anywhere, just like we would never want our children to marry just anybody. The point is not just to find a home as quickly as possible, but to find the best home. Simply because some people are willing to adopt doesn’t mean they should. There are lots of restrictions on adoptive couples—job security, health screens, background checks, to name a few—and any of these could be seen as a roadblock for getting kids in homes quickly. But it’s not about “just getting them somewhere.” It’s about the “best interest of the child,” and some homes are better than others. When dealing with an often vulnerable population of children, family stability is vitally important. Unmarried, cohabitating relationships have proven themselves over and over to be less stable than married relationships.
2. What about single people? Don’t they sometimes get to adopt?
Yes, but a single-parent home still has the potential for becoming a home with a married mom and dad. Cohabitating couples tend to stay unmarried and eventually split up. Further, in a single-parent home children are not exposed to the same risk of emotional and spiritual disruption as when one of the cohabiting individuals leaves. Statistically speaking, the risk of disruption is much greater in cohabitating relationships.
3. Isn’t your position based on religious hang-ups about homosexuality being a sin, a view not everyone shares?
Religious or not, most Tennesseans agree with statistics showing that same-sex homes are much more likely to expose children to instability, insecurity and violence. So religious beliefs are beside the point, even though they confirm the obvious. The issue is that men and women were designed to complement each other in ways that homosexual partners never can. This includes the dual-gender modeling that flows from the two sexes living together in a committed, lifelong relationship, which contributes to the overall wellbeing of a child. Furthermore, the preference in our state for heterosexual marriage was made clear last year when 81% of Tennessee’s voters amended their constitution to reflect that only heterosexual marriages would be recognized.
4. Do you really believe that the state has the right to determine morality?
All law reflects somebody’s morality, whether it be a law against murder, polluting or shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. Even those who say that laws shouldn’t regulate morality are doing just that: putting forth a view about the law based on their own morality regarding what laws should or shouldn’t do. As to adoption in particular, state law has always applied a standard—the best interest of the child—which by definition means that ethical and moral judgments must be made. And these judgments reflect the notion that some homes are better than others. So adoption law has always reflected the existence and necessity of moral judgments within the law. Of course there can be bad patterns of behavior among individual adoptive parents, and in homes with married birth parents marriages can fracture. But state law allows for children in abusive environments to be removed from the home (and it should be noted that these laws also reflect ethical and moral judgments about what is harmful). And in the unfortunate case of divorce, the law contemplates that possibility by making provision for the care and wellbeing of children by placing duties on both parents.
5. Aren’t some couples who never marry still committed to one another in stable relationships?
Yes, but statistics show these are exceptions since unmarried couples are less likely to stay together very long. In theory, of course two unmarried people can be committed to one another in an enduring relationship. But when it comes to determining the level of commitment in a legal context, objective, bright line evidence of that commitment is best. Marriage is the best evidence of that commitment and provides an objective test that the law can most easily and uniformly administer and apply.
6. Isn’t the requirement of marriage as evidence of commitment unfair since homosexuals are not permitted to marry?
No; what’s really unfair is placing children in homes that we know are statistically unstable. That is never in the best interest of the child. At the heart of this question is the definition of marriage. The definition of marriage has been decided overwhelmingly in Tennessee when 81% of voters amended their constitution to recognize only marriages between one man and one woman. But, again, the issue in the context of homosexual cohabitation is the value of dual gendering modeling for children that arises from the complementary nature of men and women.
7. Doesn’t the research show that there is no difference between families that are headed by a married mom and dad and families headed by same sex couples?
It depends on what you mean by “research.” There are some who insist there is no difference. But even advocates for homosexual parenting have acknowledged that research in their favor is ideologically driven, fundamentally flawed and lacks credibility. At last count there had been at least three reviews of existing literature on sexual orientation and parenting, and all three have pointed to the limitations of the social science behind them. One of those reviews, a now famous article published in the American Sociological Review by two pro-homosexual authors, stated that not only are the studies flawed, but that if anything they show that yes there are differences in the outcomes of children raised by same-sex parents as compared to those who aren’t, and that studies that claim there are no differences are simply wrong. Children who are in same-sex parent homes have higher rates of becoming homosexuals themselves, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since that would have been the model set for them. Further, especially since the empirical social science data is so unreliable at present, should we subject some of the most vulnerable of children among us to the social experimentation of same-sex parenting and thereby subject their crucial developmental years to such risk of injury? (Click here for more information on this subject.) In any event, no study can provide that much help. Same-sex parenting is such a recent phenomenon that there hasn’t been enough time to conduct the kind of longitudinal studies that would be critical to any attempt to drawing conclusions. But do we really need research to tell us that there is value to a child of dual-gender parenting? Common sense should tell us that what nature itself requires for the procreation of children – a man and a woman – would be the best environment for children, and the “best interest” of the child is the legal test.
8. Is it legally permissible for adoption law to reflect a preference for different types of relationships?
Yes; since adoption is a privilege and not a right, the state freely decides who will or won’t adopt. In 2004, in the case of Lofton v. Kearney, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state had a legitimate interest in increasing the likelihood that children will be raised by married mothers and fathers. The court said, “It is rational for Florida to conclude that it is in the best interests of adoptive children, many of whom come from troubled and unstable backgrounds, to be placed in a home anchored by both a father and a mother.” |
