Gay Adoption

While many gay and lesbian couples have decided to become parents, they have met many obstacles along the way. In the United States, each state currently determines its position on gay adoption. Currently, Florida is the only state that refuses single parent adoption rights to gays and lesbians. Additionally, Utah prohibits adoption by a person who is cohabiting in a relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage, making it legal for single people to adopt, regardless of sexual orientation, so long as they are not co-habitating in non-marital relationships. Furthermore, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington State and Washington, D.C. explicitly allow second-parent adoption by same-sex couples statewide, either by statute or court ruling.

Many opponents of gay couples have the right to adopt make claims stating that social science evidence shows that the best environment for the well-being of a child comes from a household family consisting of a heterosexual mother and father. Along these same lines, they make the claim that children living in a homosexual family or more likely to experience with homosexuality than a child raised by heterosexual parents. In response to these claims, the supports of gay adoption rights state that there is no hard evidence proving that gays and lesbians are unfit to be parents or that a child raised in a homosexual household will be worse-off than a child raised in a heterosexual household. This is just one example of an argument put forth by the advocates and critics of the issue and many more can be found at the site below.

http://www.youdebate.com/DEBATES/gay_adoption.HTM?survey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_adoption