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GAY, LESBIAN, ADOPTED
A Third View
Americans' For Open Records and AmFOR.net web pages serve individuals of all races, nationalities, religions, political persuasions and gender preferences. AmFOR has been assisting Lupe Calvillo, a transgender adoptee incarcerated in a man's prison, with family search and legal help, detailed at "Adopted Prisoners", http://AdoptedPrisoners.com. Nicolas West, native of Chile, was adopted by a missionary couple from Tyler, Texas. Prior to his being kidnapped, beaten, robbed and murdered -- because he was gay -- his adopters refused to accept his gay sexual orientation. http://www.holysmoke.org/fem/fem0385.htm .
This page offers issues related to being Gay, Lesbian, Adopted.
The Purpose of This Web Page:
A "THIRD VIEW" ON NON-TRADITIONAL ADOPTIVE FAMILIES
by Lori Carangelo
The two views most often expounded on Gay and Lesbian parenting are usually couched in terms of one's "right" or entitlement to have children, including by adoption, versus the Religious Right's and others' homophobic view. The purpose of this page is to provide a forum for a Third View: the Anti-Adoption View.
"Non-traditional parenting" is usually defined as any family unit that is parented by other than two heterosexual, married parents. There are many web-sites on Gay/Lesbian Parenting which offer sociological, religious, legal, political views and studies and/or human interest stories. This forum is for those who both respect the familial relationships created by gay/lesbian partners with children and other "non-traditional" family units BUT ALSO take issue with Adoption itself as an equitable form of custody.
Recognizing that issues such as abortion and gay/lesbian parenting are "political hot buttons" which tend to "use" adoption to gain acceptance, this page provides a "Third View" -- by and for Non-Traditional families- (single-parent, gay/lesbian, mixed race, co-parented)--which, today, make up the majority of all American families. Our position is that no one has a "right to adopt" and that the legal term "parent" should not also refer to "adopter" or "caregiver" to force acceptance.
Legislative vs. Judicial
U. S. SUPREME COURT RULES GAY ADOPTION BAN UNCONSTITUTIONAL - YET AVOID
RULING WHETHER ADOPTION ITSELF IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
The Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas means, essentially, that it is unconstitutional to enact state laws that discriminate against a prospective adopter due to their sexual orientation. In a supplemental brief, the ACLU pointed out that the recent decision from the High Court further strengthens its argument that the adoption ban in Florida preventing gay/lesbian adoptions is unconstitutional.
...In Lawrence, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that made some forms of sexual intimacy a crime for gay people. The court explicitly overturned its 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, which Florida relied on to justify the ban on gay adoptions. In reaching its decision, the Court said that states can't have laws that "demean" the lives of gay people and must respect gay relationships.
...Even though the state prevents lesbians and gay men from adopting, it relies on gay people to be foster parents to children in need of stable homes. Two of the three families represented by the ACLU in the case are raising Florida foster children.
Yet the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently refused to even hear challenges to the constitutionality of Adoption itself and state laws denying equal protection rights to adoption-affected persons, in Carangelo v O'Neill/State of Connecticut et al (a 1990 a class action by "adoption affected persons--adoptees, parents and adopters together), ALMA Society v. Mellon and Yesterday's Children v. Kennedy (both 1970s class actions by adoptees)
LESBIAN MOM WANTS TO GIVE BABY BOY SEX CHANGE by Marsh Larimore Weekly World News(10/06/2005)
LESBIAN mom Kim Marshall wants doctors to turn her adopted baby boy into a baby girl with a full-blown sex change -- now! And if somebody, somewhere, doesn't bring pressure to bear on the woman's plans, toddling 2-year-old Tommy Marshall will soon be toddling "Tammy."
"Looking back on it, I never should have adopted a boy, but he was all that was available and I took what I could get because I was desperate," says Marshall, whose significant other, Rosemary Johnson, says she "hasn't been real happy with a boy," either. "It's not that Tommy isn't a sweet kid -- he's so kind and gentle that when we put him in his little sun dress, people actually think he's a girl. But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I could see trouble on the horizon. Little boys don't stay little boys forever. They grow up to be men. And if there's one thing I don't need in my life, it's a man," she fumes. "That's why I'm a lesbian. Duh."
It goes without saying that anti-gay groups such as the Christian Militia Against Fornication in Marshall's hometown of Atlanta, Ga., are none too pleased with the woman's plan to change the sex of her adopted baby.
"We've warned against allowing gays to adopt babies for years, and this is why," says Duff Carter, a founding member of the militia. "We all know why she wants a little girl anyway -- and that's to teach her to be a lesbian, too. We'll do everything in our power to stop this sex change. We've already raised $1,700 to pay our lawyers."
Sex-change surgeon Dr. Linda Chervil, who, it is rumored, may be a flaming lesbian herself, says she has no intentions of getting involved in the politics of the operation that's scheduled for April 15. "I'm a physician, not a lawyer or a social critic," she told Weekly World News exclusively. "All I can tell you is that I have a patient who is in desperate need of a sex change, and I fully intend to put him under the knife."
The youngest child ever to undergo sex-change surgery was Nicholas Gray of London, England. Born a hermaphrodite with both male and female sex organs in 1999, his gay father decided to do away with the female plumbing when he was just 6 months old.
Back in Atlanta, a spokesman for the agency that helped Marshall adopt the baby boy professes to be "appalled" by the turn of events. "I have nothing against gay people, but I've got to tell you, publicity like this doesn't help their cause," says Marcus Hughes. "The last thing the great majority of Americans wants to hear is that gay parents are dickering around with their children's sex. It's like their worst nightmare come true."
Separating Adoption Corruption/Deception from Family Creation
The Anti-Adoption Movement worldwide wants an end to the corruption and deception that is inherent in Adoption. The corruption concerns profiteering from sale of children. The deception concerns, in part, falsifying and sealing birth records of adoptees and their family information. The even greater deception is the concept that the purpose of having children is to fill the needs of adults and to "serve the public interest" such as by reducing welfare costs to dependent families or to improve children's educational and general living standards.
"Statistics of Adoption," "Adoption and Race", "Chosen Children" and other pages on the "Abolish Adoption" web-site document the irreparable injury done to all parties to an Adoption, particularly to the Adoptee. The Adoptee's burdens from Adoption compounds loss of his/her own family and of adjusting to societal view of their non-traditional families. Pages on this web-site document the true and untrue data about Adoption and offer alternatives for assuming legal custody and raising children when they cannot be raised by their own families.
The Real Problems of Gay/Lesbian Families
Much has been written of the problems and adjustments that children go through when raised by people who are of a different race or sexual preference than theirs. It is argued that children should not be unnecessarily burdened. But child and adult adoptees of Gay/Lesbian families have not only the same but also different burdens as other adoptees.
All adoptees in the United States are thwarted in their searches for biological reality by sealed court records and confidential adoption agency and facilitator files that are withheld from them. In some states, adult adoptees may be able to obtain true information through the system or by legally circumventing the system through self-initiated searches for information and contact with biologically-related family members. But, with the exception of "open adoptions," adoptees in gay/lesbian families who have been conceived by one of the partners to whom s/he is biologically related, through anonymous sperm or egg donation, have greater difficulty in tracking the missing piece of their biological realities. This is because the fertility clinics, sperm banks and physicians supplying donated sperm and eggs have maintained an even tighter control to assure anonymity of the donors. Some fertility clinics have been known to mix sperm of two or more donors in order that even they have no knowledge, and therefore no record, of the adoptee's true parentage. File information as to the donor's medical and social background may be totally fabricated.
Of growing concern is the fact that medical students and other college kids can be used as donors repeatedly, increasing the odds that resulting children in the same geographic area will eventually be sexually intimate and conceive children with biologically related siblings unknowingly, thus also increasing the likelihood of a future population of children with genetic disorders.
How Gay/Lesbian "Conception Deception" Impacts Children
by Lia Vandersant (liavandersant@yahoo.com.au)
Just want to let you know how much I admire the work you are doing and to say you have my full emotional support.
My partner donated sperm when he was young and two years ago saw a picture of a young girl on the front page of a national newspaper (in Australia). She was the product of a sperm donation and was looking for her father. My partner recognized the profile as his and the picture of the young girl (then 20) as his daughter. She also has a brother from the same donor. There are three other daughters out there somewhere.
Two years down the track we have come to the conclusion that sperm, ovum and embryo donations have spiraled out of control and should be banned altogether. I think there are about five people on this planet who feel this way and we are opposed to thousands of mothers who become violent and abusive when we dare to suggest that their children may grow up missing their father and half their family members. The sperm, embryo and egg donors are also into denial as are a lot of donor offspring themselves. We believe the offspring are into denial because of the awesome loyalty and dependence these children feel towards their only parent (the mother).
Not long age we decided to set up a chat group covering the downside of DI and we hope to continue down this path by forming a proper organization in opposition to this infertility 'cure' which no one questions.
When my partner's donor daughter speaks out against DI she is invariably told that she is not grateful for her life and she must be experiencing deeper life problems and using DI as a scapegoat. The same arguments are hurled at us when we openly support her arguments.
This form of abuse acts as an effective 'gag' for any other donor offspring to come forward against the practice. Even the ones who are openly opposed to DI rarely post in our group since they are so emotionally battered by the parents and donors who so vehemently support DI.
We are constantly being appealed to 'feel' for the plight of infertile couples who are being joined in droves by 'single mothers by choice' and the gay and lesbian couples who all believe they are entitled to the same 'rights' as 'fertile' people.
Our loss is your gain because adoption is not an option for these people since they claim that the selection criteria for adoption is too strict, adoption too expensive and the wait too long. DI is seen as a quick, easy and cheap 'fix'. They refuse to consider the cost to the child, their main argument being that because the baby is 'loved and wanted' the child will not miss knowing the other parent or half their family. Many donors use the high rates of paternity fraud as a good argument in favor of DI (go figure).
Having entered this arena I have learned a lot about adoption and fully support your stance against adoption. This is all a lucrative trade in human beings, too young and vulnerable to defend themselves, and every aspect of it should be banned.
I would say that right now we are about where you found yourself in the early 70's and I just wanted to let you know that you, your efforts, your web-site and the level of discussion on this group are a real inspiration for us to continue with our efforts to ban DI. So thanks, Lia
Alternatives for Gay/Lesbian and Other Non-Traditional Families
Gay and Lesbian partners are currently prohibited, in most states, from legally marrying but only a few states--Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts and Minnesota--ban adoptions by independent facilitators or attorneys, thus enabling Gay/Lesbian and other "non-traditional family" adoptions [Connecticut, Massachusetts and Minnesota will all waive the requirement that adoptions be done through an agency if the child's interests are better served by an independent adoption]. Some courts will consider that a child who has already been living in a non-traditional family setting for a length of time has "bonded" or "attached" and will not "disrupt" that family. Court also define "child's best interests" according to political winds of change. What is important to remember is that regardless whether the adoptee is raised in a "traditional" or "non-traditional" family, s/he will still be discriminated against for life as a separate "class" under state adoption laws.
Resources for Gay/Lesbian Families
DONOR OFFSPRING/PARENT REGISTRY and SEARCH
(Free worldwide registry, enables adult adoptees of gay/lesbian families
to
connect with the missing piece of biological reality)
http://amfor.net/DonorOffspring
CHILDREN OF LESBIANS AND GAYS EVERYWHERE (COLAGE)
http://www.colage.org/
SUPPORT GROUPS FOR GAY AND LESBIAN PARENTS (by State)
http://milepost1.com/~gaydad/
OUR HOUSE (web-site and film)
Research Overview of Lesbian and Gay Parenting
http://www.itvs.org/ourhouse/parenting.html
