Arkansas voters will consider a measure this November to restrict unmarried couples, homosexual or heterosexual, from adopting children.
As my post on this subject a few days ago illustrates, homosexuals are aghast at what they consider anti-homosexual oppression and dehumanization.
But what they have conveniently overlooked is that this measure is about providing a stable, reliable, healthy home for children, not about imaginary attempts to dehumanize homosexuals.
As OneNewsNow points out (and as I pointed out previously), this bill would bar all unmarried couples from adopting.
Even unmarried heterosexual couples, while they can at least provide both a mother and father for the child, cannot provide the stability and security children need.
For one thing, if they are unwilling to commit to each other, how can they be relied on to commit to the demanding task of raising a child?
But it goes deeper than that.
According to “The Negative Effects of Cohabitation” published in the The Responsive Community journal by sociology professor Linda Waite, 16% of cohabiting women reported physical arguments in the previous year, compared with 5% of married women. Department of Justice figures show a domestic violence rate four times higher for cohabitative women than married women.
Waite's research also showed that while surveys reveal only 4% of married women having sex with others outside the relationship, 20% of cohabitating women do.
These problems are even worse in the homosexual community. A National Institute of Justice found that 39% of same-sex cohabitants reported domestic violence. The Handbook of Family Development and Intervention found that 54% of lesbians couples had experienced 10 or more abusive incidents, and 74% had experienced six or more incidents. A Journal of Social Service Research survey found more than half of lesbian couples reported abuse by a partner.
All children deserve and need a stable home environment where healthy intersex relationships are modeled and healthy behavior is the norm.
But adopted children, because of the chaos and trouble they have already experienced, need this good environment even more. They desperately need peaceful, stable, reliable home environments where they can begin to put the hurt, confusion and uncertainty of the past behind them.
This measure in Arkansas is about the welfare of children, and putting that before the desires of selfish adults.
It's time we started putting children higher on the list of priorities than our pets.
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Arkansas Adoption Measure About Children, Not Adults
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8 comments:
"As OneNewsNow points out (and as I pointed out previously), this bill would bar all unmarried couples from adopting."
What's next? A bill prohibiting all unmarried couples from having babies? A bill requiring all children of unmarried couples to be removed from their homes and raised by married couples? I thought Republicans wanted LESS government involvement, not more.
As I pointed out in a previous post, prohibiting unmarried couples from having babies is impractical. It would require a police state beyond our technical or manpower resources to carry out, not to mention the sacrifice of liberty.
It is reasonable and practical, however, to prevent those children already in existence from being placed in inadequate homes.
And such a measure fits within both conservative philosophy and the wisdom of the founders. As Thomas Jefferson said, "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."
If government doesn't protect the lives and welfare of human beings--children among those most at risk--then it is derelict in it's most important function.
How is prohibiting unmarried couples from adopting NOT a sacrifice of liberty?
You're right that it would require an extreme amount of technology and surveillance to enforce a law prohibiting unmarried couples from having babies. And that's my point. Is this Arkansas law not a step in that direction? How do you know?
If the liberty existed in the first place, it is one that should not have been there.
We place reasonable restrictions on liberty in the interest of human welfare all the time--and this is certainly a case where it would be proper.
For the reasons I mentioned and more, homosexual couples and other unmarried couples are not a good place to situate children, especially children who already have experienced problems.
And no, I don't think this law is a step in direction of the Orwellian scenario, if for no other reason than it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it is totally and flatly impossible to implement.
I wouldn't be so sure, Bob. It may be impossible to implement full population control NOW, but that doesn't mean it can't happen in the future. Look at China's one-child policy. Most of the country's billion citizens support it and, its motives, ethical considerations, and drawbacks aside, the policy is very real. If a country the size of China can manage it, think of what America, the most technologically advanced and biblically devout nation, can do if given the necessary push.
I can't help but notice that you invoke the slippery slope argument when explaining why same-sex marriage equality and adoption should be illegal, yet you refuse to accept the possibility when it's not in your argument's best interest to do so.
If you are as objective and accurate as you say you are, I wonder how many children of gay parents you personally have talked to? Are they ALL maladjusted? Do you even try to seek out the ones (and they do exist) who are not? How many PFLAG meetings have you attended, to learn firsthand what it's like to be in a family with gay parents and/or children? What gay adoption organizations have you personally been engaged with, to get the full scope of the issues you write about?
Anonymous 6:21, you made my point with the example of the Chinese population control. In case you hadn't noticed, they are a communist police state where people have no real freedom beyond what the despots in charge give them.
And I stated earlier that is what you would have to have in order to have any hope of implementing your outrageous "what if."
If we get to the stage where that becomes realistic both from an ideological and logistical perspective, every other freedom will have already gone out the door, so something like this is hardly worth even worrying about.
And candidly, your pursuit of such an outlandish "what if" is merely a transparent attempt to divert attention and legitimacy from the very reasonable need and effort to protect the welfare of children.
In other words, you're not fooling anyone.
Could you please answer the questions in my last paragraph? I'm interested to know whether you get your information fairly, from both sides of the issue, or if you only seek out information that suits your cause.
No, Anonymous, I make it up.
Yes, I get it "fairly." It wouldn't matter whether the the information came from Focus on the Family or the Human Rights Campaign or anywhere in between, as long as it was accurate and verifiable.
But to knock over objection #8 (out of what I am sure is a box-set of 4,398 objections or more) to accepting reality, my sources include references such as gay.com, the Journal of Sex Research, The Social Organization of Sexuality, the Washington Blade, the Lambda Report, USA Today, the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Social Service Research, the International Journal of Epidemiology, the Department of Justice, the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control, the New England Journal of Medicine, and others.
If you want more than that, go do a little research for yourself. The truth might surprise you.
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