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Protecting America from the Dangers of Gay Adoption

December 1st, 2008
By JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor

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We’re pleased this week to welcome a fresh entry in the political new media community in the person of James Richardson and his new web site, The Skepticians. James was the Republican National Committee’s Online Communication Manager for the 2008 Presidential election, supporting John McCain’s bid for the White House and was instrumental in providing many bloggers and new media pundits of all stripes with unparalleled access to the GOP campaign. With all of the discussion regarding the future direction of the GOP following the bloodbath of 08, many Republicans have been fielding their own proposals and Richardson is no exception. In an article sure to raise a few eyebrows on the Right, James comes out swinging with an examination of a ban on gay adoption in Florida and why the GOP needs to embrace the rights and needs of this community.

Is the fight to preserve the traditional American family – think the Cleavers meet the Bradys – one to, as its proponents argue, protect children, or is it means by which to silence the “radical gay agenda” in the United States through institutionalized shame? Cindy Lederman, a Miami-Dade circuit judge, is convinced it’s the latter.

Lederman’s landmark ruling, a move likely to elicit Prop 8-like responses, noted the inherent hypocrisy in Florida state law allowing gay men and women to be foster parents, but not legally adopt, further rejecting the notion that there is “a supposed dark cloud hovering over homes of homosexuals and their children”:

Richardson is well aware how this may be received by his Republican colleagues.

My support for gay adoption will surely be met with hostility and, no doubt, charges of RHINO’ism by many of my colleagues, but the Grand Old Party is at a crossroads and now is not the time for an echo chamber. Homosexual demagoguery is not the answer to the Party’s woes, particularly when gay men and women represent the only demographic in which John McCain bested President Bush (27% to 19% based on exit polling). And as Daniel Blatt notes, gay-hostile rhetoric no longer resonates in suburban areas with soccer moms, many of whom have gay friends or family members, and plays even worse with young voters, 61% of which voted against stripping gay couples of the right to marry.

To my dissenters, let me be clear, I am not advocating some sort of radical “judicial activism.” I maintain that judicial resolution to these matters (adoption, marriage, etc) typically leads to protracted and bitter legal battles, but, what is perhaps equally as distressing is our collective failure as a Party to hold a candid discussion on the emerging role of gays in the Party and society at large – not as outcastes, but as equals.

Gay adoption is just another slice of the larger pie of civil rights for GLBT Americans which are still on the horizon. (As with the rest of the struggles in the civil rights movement, it’s going to get here eventually, but it will take time.) The specifics of this issue seem a bit easier to nail down, though. Opponents rally around a cry that children are best raised in a family including “one man and one woman.” Even were we to accept this as a valid premise it still begs the question of what to do when children don’t have the ideal option open to them. What of single family homes where only one parent remains due to death, divorce or abandonment? Should those children be seized since they no longer meet the one man, one woman test? And is a home in the care of the state ever a better option than an actual home with one or two parents of any gender?

It will be more interesting to see if any of James’ conservative allies take this advice under consideration in an effort to increase the party’s viability in future election cycles. The GOP will need to break out of their Southern stronghold and expanding the Log Cabin Republicans could be one path to do that. Aside from some of the hard core, older, white social conservatives (who aren’t exactly cheerleaders for civil rights in any sector) is there something specifically antithetical to conservatism about attracting the support of gay voters? Too big of a tent can bring some of its own problems, as Democrats often demonstrate, but too small a tent is a one way ticket to obscurity.



This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 9:56 am and is filed under Family, Babies, Social Conservatives, Gay Rights, Children, Christian Conservatives, Society, GLBT Issues, Religious Right, Parenting. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 6 Comments

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    I'm not sure how I feel about marriage of gay couples, though I see no reason why they should not be allowed to have civil unions. I definitely agree with you that a home with parent or parents who want you, whether a male/female couple, both of one gender, or single parent, is preferable to the state, or even private-run foster care. For those who think that children raised by homosexuals are more likely to become homosexual, how do you explain the homosexual children of heterosexuals?

    My 2 daughters are both young adults now, but when they were in grade school we attended a church which included a lesbian couple (the congregation was not particularly open-minded or "inclusive" in general, though individuals were). I would have trusted those 2 women to care for my daughters before I would have trusted some of the heterosexual couples. I knew another lesbian couple at the time, and I would have trusted them equally. Not to say I would have trusted any homosexual person to care for my daughters -- they have their "bad eggs" the same as the heterosexual population.
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    I'm glad to see someone stepping up to this issue. The zealots in my home state (Arkansas) got an initiative passed a couple of years ago banning all civil unions. Now this year they got an amendment to the constitution preventing any unmarried cohabitating couples (the actual target being gays) from being foster parents, although Child services already had a rule allowing unmarried hetero couples, and gays to be foster parents.
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    "is there something specifically antithetical to conservatism about attracting the support of gay voters?"

    This is a very interesting question -- I'm a bleeding heart liberal in a very liberal area, so I wouldn't pretend to have any specific personal knowledge on the question, but I'd love an answer to it. It does seem to me, though, that it would depend a lot on what type of conservative we're talking about. The gay population is just as well-educated and wealthy as the straight population, and they come from every class and family situation, so it seems that there could be a lot of fiscally-conservative gay people out there. I don't know what luck there is with the social conservatives -- I've really never met people with more hate for the LGBT community than this group. The gay community also tends to be more social-service-oriented than the overall straight community, and far more sex positive; these will be big stumbling blocks to inclusion in the GOP. I think if the GOP really wants the votes of the LGBT community, their best bet lies in including the bedroom and the altar as places the government needs to get out of. Right now, that seems fully antithetical to the current reality of the conservative movement.
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    "... their best bet lies in including the bedroom and the altar as places the government needs to get out of."
    Hear, hear! In my opinion, there is far too much governmental intrusion in our lives, and these two areas are definitely not the province of the government. The Puritanical heritage of this country still runs strong in those who want to control what happens in the bedroom and who can marry/unite or not. The historical Puritans' efforts to control individual behavior led to some disastrous consequences; perhaps some of our modern-day "Puritans" need to look back at history, but I'm afraid some would still not learn the lesson.
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    R-80: GBLT people are a minority that have been excluded or mistreated, and the GOP has the older-white-male, affluent "closed club" reputation still (hyped by the Left, but nevertheless with a kernel of truth) which goes back to the 1930s, and then with the Left's civil rights victories and the radicalism of liberalism, which extends to personal behavior, naturally the GBLT crowd is liberal and Democratic. I wouldn't expect that to change. (No, consideration of anything other than anarchy or a toddler's view of "I can do whatever I want," and commonplace reaction to the concept of No and of disapproval and judgment, does not constitute Puritanism. Issue clarified and corrected.)

    I believe it's extremist as well as wrong to oppose gay adoption. That's independent of the cruel irony (that is separate, and makes the opposition worse) that many children are unwanted by their parents, or are neglected or abused. Being wanted and cared for and raised well is a good, not a bad thing; surely most don't still believe the myth that gays are inherently pedophiles. (They're people like everyone else; they view pedophilia and pedophiles the same way we straights do.)

    R-80: You left out one other example about the GBLT community, a piece of a stereotype grounded in fact: "shock troops of gentrification." Too bad many a troubled community didn't realize that and openly court a solution.
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    DLS --
    I think what I was trying to say is that a lot of the barriers to acceptance into the GOP "club" -- like poverty, race, a history of oppression passed down through families -- don't really exsist within the gay community in the same way as they often exsist within other minority groups. Gay people are born into affluent families, born to white families, born to educated parents, at the same relative rate as straight people. Except that they are the sexual minority, there is nothing keeping gay people from having the same inclinations toward conservatism as anyone else, including some of the negative stereotypes of conservatives (racists, anti-immigrant, stodgey). Because they are discriminated against because of who they love, there is a connection to other oppressed minorities, like people of color, and there is also a higher chance of being beat up/kicked out/cut-off, etc, and so the gay community is statistically more likely to better understand issues of poverty, violence, etc. All that points to being more on the liberal side of things. However, if being gay weren't considered anything wrong at all, if their relationships and families were recognized and celebrated like anyone else's, there's really nothing else to keep them from being less conservative than straight people. As opposed to, say, the black community, where family histories include slavery, where there are overwhelming cultural and institutional issues that mean they often attend poor schools, encounter more violence, tend to be less wealthy, and have children at a younger age.

    I have no idea what you mean by "shock troops of gentrification". Can you clarify?
 
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