Ban on Gays adopting
 

Arkansas voted in favor of banning gays from adopting... WTF? I can't believe that was even on the ballot, let alone won? Does anyone else think this is crazy?

It's crazy, but not surprising, if that makes sense.

100%.

FWIW, it bans all "sexual partners" from adopting, including hetero couples, so I guess you can only adopt if you're single or married now.

I don't

Well, obviously these kids are better off with no parents than with gay ones! :rolleyes:

It's especially stupid considering that this measure can't and won't stop gay parents from adopting. They'll just have half the couple adopt the child as a "single" parent and then raise it together.

Fear of the gay planet...

So who is going to take care of the all the children who do not get adopted by anyone in Arkansas?

That is depressing...

Refusal to move beyond selfishness...

Right, but what it WILL do is ban second-parent adoption. So the second parent will not be legally able to be a parent and thus will have no legal rights regarding the child. For example, if the custodial parent passes away, then this sets up a legal battle wherein some homophobic grandparents (God forbid) fight the second parent for the child, since the second parent is not legally a "parent."

So it sucks. A lot.

I always get amused, though, by people who seemingly fail to realize that many gay people have BIOLOGICAL children. Lesbians can get pregnant! Gay men can have children from previous hetero relationships! Somehow people think that if they ban gay adoptions that magically gay people will have no access to children!

Well, in most cases, if the parent that passed on specified in their will that the child was to be raised by the other partner after their death, the court would grant that. The grandparents could fight it, but they'd be unlikely to win unless the living partner was deemed somehow unfit.

A more unfortunate case would be if the child was extremely ill--whichever parent hadn't adopted him would probably have no legal rights to visit him in the hospital, for example. Or if a couple that was trying to adopt did not make a lot of money, they might not be eligible to adopt. (They might have a combined income that was enough to hit the minimum financial bar, for example, but would not meet it individually.) Or, of course, if they have enough money (and generally, if you're looking into adoption, you do) they can always go to another state that does allow gay adoption, which is what gay couples have been doing for years. Even some couples whose states allow a single gay parent to adopt, or second-parent adoption, will go out of their way to travel to a state where joint adoption is allowed, like Oregon (a la Dan Savage in The Kid) or Vermont.

So basically, while I agree with you that it sucks, I don't think it's a huge setback in the gay rights movement. Florida's LGBT adoption laws are far worse (they don't even allow a single LGBT parent to adopt). It's more of an empty gesture designed to intimidate than it will be a serious deterrent to gays who really want to adopt . . . as are all these silly no-gay-marriage propositions popping up over the last three major elections -- they're last ditch efforts by conservatives who know they'll be overturned in the next 15 years because every generation coming up is increasingly more supportive of gay marriage (young Americans now are something like 60%+ in favor of it) and their base who are vehemently against it are all 50+. Their days where they will have the support to pass measures like this are numbered, so they're trying to get it on the books while they still can. While the state of LGBT rights looks pretty abysmal right now, it's the calm before the storm.

Eh, I think it still sucks more than you're giving it credit for. For example there are a lot of non-wealthy gays and lesbians out there. A lot of those people haven't actually adopted flat out. Their children are biological - from previous marriages or otherwise. I don't know all the stats, but I'm thinking that's just as common as adoption if not more. In those cases, whichever parent is not the biological parent gets screwed.

It's also perpetuating class-based oppression for working class gays and lesbians. That's a very overlooked population group. It's just like if a state bans abortion, the rich people of that state will still have access to abortion - they'll go out of state. It's the poor people who get screwed.

Again, yes, those who can afford adoption can probably afford legal protections for themselves. You can write up a contract to imitate marriage and all kinds of other rights. But you have to have the money. And there are a lot of gay couples whose children are not adopted in the way people imagine. Many are also foster parents, which adds even more complexity to the situation.

I think it's really unwise to downplay the suck of this law... you know? I know people who have been major activists for second-parent adoption in states - even in states where it's not banned, per se, it can still be extremely difficult and expensive - and I know a fair bit about the consequences for families if second-parent adoption is no longer an option (whether the kids were adopted by one parent originally or are biologically one parent's).

Agreed, though, that most of this will eventually be repealed.

The difference between your comparison of adoption and abortion doesn't work because of the economics behind it. If you're interested in adoption, you have to have some extra cash on hand. The same just isn't true (to the same extent) of abortion. An adoption is going to cost you an absolute minimum of around $5000-7000 (unless you're going through the foster care system, which, needless to say, most people don't), but probably closer to $20,000-30,000, and potentially all the way on up to $45,000. The extra $1000 or so that you might have to spend to arrange an out-of-state adoption is probably not going to seem like that much. (The extra $1000 you'd have to spend on going out of state for an abortion, however, probably is significant to a lot of women.) A couple that's just barely scraping by in the first place just wouldn't be looking into adoption. They wouldn't be able to afford it.

I'm not trying to be dismissive here, I just tend to take a big picture, long-range view of things. The big picture shows that, even for straight couples, the American adoption system discriminates against fully capable, loving prospective parents on a number of criteria that have nothing to do with their ability to be parents -- being single, their age, their financial status (requiring them to have far more money than, say, a young couple about to have their first biological kid would need). Or even in states where gay marriage is legal, the biological mother will request that their child have straight adoptive parents. This is why many couples, both straight and gay, or single people have chosen overseas adoption for years -- it's just easier and faster than the extremely restrictive American adoption process. The bottom line is that adoption is just very expensive and very difficult for most Americans, regardless of sexuality, so going out of state to complete an adoption seems like, well, not that big of a deal compared to a lot of the other things they might have to go through during the adoption process. I don't like the law for what it stands for, this idea of codifying into law a completely screwed-up form of discrimination, this idea that gay parents will somehow magically mess up their children more than abusive or neglectful straight ones . . . but in terms of its practical applications, I don't think it will prevent many, if any, gay parents who really want to adopt from adopting in the long term.

OK, well, I still think that for gay parents who can't afford adoption (and already have bio kids), and thus probably also can't afford a lawyer to draw up all kinds of legal instruments for them, the ban on adoption, which prevents them from doing second-parent adoption, will be a serious problem.

I don't think my comparison to abortion is so bad, either. My point is not really about parents who can afford adoption - my point is that in practice this is going to affect gay couples parenting bio kids and foster kids the most, and they are going to be less likely in many cases to afford to move out of state or whatever. You're correct insofar as gay couples seeking to adopt a brand new child and not do second-parent adoption can probably afford whatever. And of course it's extremely financially difficult for hetero couples to afford that kind of adoption too...

Makes me wonder if Arkansas already restricts gay couples from having foster kids.

I accept your general long-term view, but I do think we have a pretty significant disagreement about this law and who it will affect in the short term. I really do believe you're underestimating the full significance of second-parent adoption in cases where there is a biological kid. THOSE are the people who are most affected by this law, and there are a lot of those people out there. In fact they constitute the majority of such families (I thought so, but I had to find the citation to back myself up):

http://family.findlaw.com/adoption/s...ion-intro.html

Pardon my legal ignorance here, but what about guardianship? Let's say, Partner A has a child from a previous hetero relationship, and has sole custody. He is now with Partner B. Would Partner B be allowed to be appointed as a Legal Guardian for the child?

Guardianship varies from state to state.

Also, legal guardianship does not necessarily give certain rights to the child- such as access to health insurance. So if partner A wants to stay home and raise the child, partner B cannot add the child to their work health insurance plan (unless the place of employment has domestic partnership health insurance). Normally, only adopted, bilogical, and those children under a court order can be added to company health insurance.