ADOPTION: Jonathan Rowe

...The problem: These studies demonstrating the superiority of mother & father households typically compare them to SINGLE PARENT homes, where the children commonly are born to young unwed mothers who do not finish high school.

And no doubt, such births are connected to a whole host of social pathologies, including crime, poverty, and lack of educational achievement. ...

But, since there is good reason to believe that gay couples raising children eliminate many of the key problems inherent in single mother households, the studies demonstrating married intact families' superiority over young-unwed single mother families, in and of themselves, prove nothing against the prospects of children being raised by gay couples.

First, studies demonstrate that if you control for wealth & income, many of the gaps in social pathologies between single-parent homes and married ones shrink. (To be fair, Wilson's above linked article notes a study by Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur that shows that although controlling for income shrinks the gaps, it doesn't eliminate them entirely. "The rest of the difference is explained by a mother living without a husband.") ...

But more importantly, "wealth & income control" is relevant to gay adoption: Some studies already show that gays have higher rates of wealth, income, and education (and the social right loves to trot them out when arguing why gays don't need anti-discrimination protection). Stereotypical gay neighborhoods, from Dupont Circle, DC, to Provincetown, MA to New Hope, PA, to San Francisco, CA--and on and on--do tend to be affluent, educated, and urbane--the very opposite of places like North Philadelphia, PA, or Camden, NJ--or the many white ghettos like Lowell, MA--where out of wedlock births are the norm. Moreover, adoption procedures very often DO screen (or "control") for economically stable families.

Therefore, there is good reason to believe that gay adoptors as a class will be economically stable, educated, and middle-class. This is not to say that there will never be any problems that result from two men or two women raising children. But one of the major problems confronting out of wedlock births--urban poverty, and its social environment of high crime and educational dysfunction--is a major concern entirely absent from gay adoptions.

What about those "gaps" that may persist between single parents and intact families, even when controlling for income? Well, evidence shows that those gaps are likely caused by there being only ONE, and not TWO parents present to take on the parental responsibilities. ...

Finally if, as it is being argued, adoption agencies have an obligation to prefer heterosexual couples to homosexual ones, they also should have an obligation to prefer homosexual couples to single parents seeking to adopt.

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posted by Eve at 7:51 PM | link

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