That’s how Baby Daddies(2016) who are a pair of gay couples, posted his frustration in their Facebook page. There are always “people that are too narrow minded to understand our desire to have kids”. They are hardly alone in the experience. Twenty or thirty years ago, majority of people cannot accept same sex marriage because it was believed that only marriage between a male and female are normal. However, by seeing countries trying to implement laws to legalise same sex marriage, we can realise that today’s society began to accept same sex marriage. But still, when it comes to the topic of whether it is correct for homosexual couples to adopt children, the opinions vary widely. Although some people said that children who grew up in abnormal family is likely to have strange concept in the future, the following essay will reveal allowing of adoption will benefit not only their self-desire but also the society. To my personal belief, adoption of kids by homosexual couples should be allowed.
First of all, adoption of children by homosexual couples gives the abandoned children a chance to grow up in love and warmth. According to the Williams Institute(2013), “same-sex parents in the United States are four times more likely than different-sex parents to be raising an adopted child.” From this, we can see that most of the different sex couples will not choose to adopt kids but would choose to have their own kids while same gender couples will adopt most of the abandoned children because they will never be able to give birth to babies. In this way, accommodation will be given to those children who originally got no parents to grow up healthily in a family with warmth. Homosexual parents can eliminate the unfading shadow in the children’s heart by acting giving them a normal childhood like others do eg, assist them the correct way to conduct themselves, accompanying them to take the right path of life …etc and they will soon walk out from the dark and are likely to be brighter. Therefore, we should allow homosexual couples to adopt children.
Furthermore, children being raised up in the homosexual couples families will not have weird behaviours, instead, they can live a freer life which can contribute to the society by reducing discrimination. As Goldberg(2012) said, 'Nobody was telling them, 'Oh, you can't do that, that's a boy thing,' or 'That's a girl thing.”. It implies that they are permitted to do things they like and develop their interest freely which turns out they know that everyone’s choices should be respected. Then, they will understand that not following the majority doesn’t mean we have to be discriminated. According to one 33-year-old man with a lesbian mother(2012), he emphasised that growing up in a non-traditional family made him become more all-rounded and the prime reason for his openness to accept the different things positively was due to his mum. The conversation reveals that children tend to be more open-minded and will know how to respect different kinds of people when they grow up because they know that their parents are to a certain extent being discriminated by people. Therefore, when they grow up, they will be able to consider problems from other’s perspectives eg, the disabled, the poor, the sick...etc. The future generations will be taught by these children to accept different kinds of people and the society with less discrimination will be more peaceful.
There are always people commenting that children grow up with homosexual couples will have strange behaviours since they think children will be influenced by their parents and become gay or lesbian. However, I do not agree with this view. From my own knowledge, since not all those homosexual couples came from these kind of families eg Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent, we can see that heterosexual couples can also raise up children who are gay or lesbian. Therefore, it should not be treated as a cause and effect relationship. Besides, as Demo(2000) emphasised, children being raised up by gay or lesbian couples have no difference in “personality characteristics”, “emotional adjustment” and “behavioural problems” when compare to those who are raised up by normal family. (p.34) The findings explained the rumours of children reared by homosexual couples may not have personality distortion in the future. Children in these family are no difference to others, they are capable to have a normal social life, be attracted to opposite sex and achieve what they want. To sum up, adoption of children by homosexual parents will not have negative impact on the children’s personal development which they can still be as outstanding as children in heterosexual families.
In any case, it is hard to say now whether allowing homosexual couples to adopt children is advantageous or not. But if they can provide the abandoned children with huge care without intervening their gender conformity and their development, I am sure that it is here to stay.