I know this is personal but where you ever in foster care?

[serryjw]

I was having a heated conversation with a RWer today about Gay adoption. I was explaining how many millions of kids need a permanent homes, why would you not want 2 people who love this child to adopt. Do you really believe that living in foster care is better.....( I ALMOST got him to agree to adoption by 2 lesbians, but not 2 men). He is still (never said it) believes that gay men are all pedophiles.
How are we EVER going to bring this country back together with small minds like that?

[Ilsa]

1. Maybe statistics on rates of pedophilia among heteros.

I don't know where to get them to compare with pedo among Gays.

[buzzard]

5. I have seen the statistics somewhere and I think most are white males.n/t

[VPStoltz]

7. Pedophiles are overwhelmingly white STRAIGHT males.

Even the pedophiles that abuse children of their same gender are straight identified.

[serryjw]

6. STATS means nothing to them

It's about their beliefs. They will only tell you it is a 'liberal' source, not to be trusted.

[IndyOp]

14. Stats can make a difference - they just have to

hear them over and over and over again to break the hypnotic spell. Beliefs trump facts - for sure - the only way to break through hypnotic attachment to beliefs is facts, facts, facts.

[murielm99]

2. I think the change will come from younger people.

They favor gay marriage overwhelmingly. Gay adoption will follow.

It can't happen soon enough.

[serryjw]

3. Yes,,,,they do!

I spent a lot of time on my college campus doing petitions and 'get out and vote' drive. They are all color blind and truly believe in the 14th amendment. IF we can last I have a lot of faith in this generation.
Namaste

[tatertop]

4. We have to slog along without them

Some people will never change.

[serryjw]

10. That's MY problem

I THINK and REASON and they don't...It gets very frustrating

Have you ever notice they will 'dismiss' any subject that they agree with....no longer important. He is not happy with Iraq, Meirs, the economy....but that isn't important to talk about. He said to me " Aren't you worried about the terrorist"? I said "I'm much more worried about our falling dollar, the enormous debt we have and * wanting to open up our borders"?

[tatertop]

16. I think people of like mind need to be networking, coming together

We have great numbers but we are not working together.
More meetings. Bigger meetings. Organize. Act.

[Tikki]

8. I should have been allowed to be raised by my...

...."never married, never had children, never had a boyfriend" AUNT...I had no idea what her sexual orientation was and I would not have cared...the little time she did raise me was the happiest most fulfilling time of my youth...


Tikki

[serryjw]

11. Of course you were

Children want to be loved and protected. They don't care what your sexual orientation is.

[VPStoltz]

9. Where was it that I read the state legislature just went through

dealing with a bill that would make it illegal for gay persons to reproduce in ANY fashion? Of course a Repuke introduced it. It was ultimately withdrawn.

[jobycom]

12. We have to work around the small minds, and convince the better minds

I had two foster brothers who came into our family when I was five. They stayed with us for about five years continuously, then began a pattern of running away and returning. One of them was beyond redemption. He was a criminal, a drug user, and a sociopath (reminds me a lot of Bush) who was in and out of jail frequently, but somehow was never sent to prison. He pimped his wife until she left him. He finally died of a drug overdose about a year ago, though I hadn't seen him in 20 years.

The other brother had a nervous breakdown and developed schizophrenia. My parents adopted him, and he still lives at their house.

They were 8 and eleven by the time they came to live with us. They had seen their happy home destroyed by their father developing schizophrenia, and their mother becoming an alcoholic. The state took them away, and they lived in a series of foster homes. Most of these homes treated them as indentured servants, and the families used the state money for their own kids while neglecting them. It took them over a year to begin to trust that my parents were different, and I believe that before their problems set in, they did see me and my sister as true siblings. I saw them that way--even the criminal, though I shielded my family from him and refused to see him.

So, they found one home out of ten that genuinely cared about them, and nine out of ten that used them for money and labor. I would say the odds would be much better with non-hetero couple adoption than with hetero couple predation.

I have no idea if they were ever sexually abused--some things you just don't ask. But I know a lot of foster kids are, and by hetero parents. So the whole hateful assumption that gay male parents might be pedophiles is ridiculous. Many hetero families are, too, and probably at about the same rate. The problem would be that the first time the state learned of a gay couple abusing a child, it would become the poster case for the right wing, whereas the hetero couple's abuse would be swept under the rug, and if it made it to the media, the media would squelch it, not wanting to trouble its readers with such unseemliness.

[serryjw]

18. I have no doubt that

there are many horror stories in heterosexual families. It is terrific that they finally knew some love..unfortunately, too late

[jobycom]

19. Who knows?

To the best of my knowledge, the sociopath never killed anyone, and my oldest brother has a home, still. Without my parents, they may have both been worse.

[ultraist]

21. IMO, your personal experience reflects the overall reality

9 out of 10 ten times, adoption is better than foster care. Foster care kids, generally move from place to place, with just a garbage bag of some clothes. It's very traumatic.

The gov does not provide enough funding for enough social workers, so foster care homes are not monitored closely enough, thus, abusive nutcase foster parents slip through the cracks and children are placed in their homes. We've all heard the horror stories of children being abused in foster homes. In some cases, the children would have been better off with the parent, they were removed from.

edit to add: No, I was never in foster care but did work in Child Protective services for a short time. Our adopted son was in foster care from age 2-5, it was very tramautic for him, although he has healed well. He's a great kid, A-B student, well adjusted, a very social and happy person. He's 14 now. (He did have to get over some anxiety, that caused him to be a bit scattered, but he is very focused and level now).

[IndyOp]

13. Memorize stats & let fly --

Social psychologists have it correct: Big words & numbers convince.

The Times quoted Dr. Judith Stacey, a professor of sociology at New York University, saying, "there is not a single legitimate scholar out there who argues that growing up with gay parents is somehow bad for children."

In February, 2002, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement recommending "that pediatricians become familiar with professional literature regarding gay and lesbian parents and their children; support the right of every child and family to the financial, psychological and legal security that results from having both parents legally recognized; and advocate for initiatives that establish permanency through coparent or second-parent adoption for children of same-sex partners." They also said that "there is a considerable body of professional literature that suggests children with parents who are homosexual have the same advantages and the same expectations for health, adjustment and development as children whose parents are heterosexual."

The ACLU's Lesbian & Gay Rights Project has published a book explaining why restrictions on gay parenting are a bad idea, Too High a Price: The Case Against Restricting Gay Parenting. It is available online, as a PDF file, or they will mail you a free copy at <http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=17245&c=104>

Lots more good stuff here:
<http://www.cornerpoetry.com/essays/adoption.html>

I actually remember a conversation about this on Franken in which a visitor cited a study that indicated that the more moms you have the better off you are socially, academically and so forth -- thus children of lesbian parents were better off than children of heterosexual couples (which had same 'success' as children of gay males).

:kick:

[serryjw]

17. I have posted this before

I think it was on 60 minutes but can wrong about this..TWO Gays in OK( whom were very much RWers!) wanted children. ONE was a lawyer and the other owned a hair salon. The client of the salon owner partner offered to surrogate a child for them. God moves in mysterious ways. She got pregnant with 5!!!! One was Catholic and was faced with a dilemma. They had to terminate one fetus or they were all going to die. They did and 4 healthy children were born. 2 years later she did it again so they other partner could have a biological child...this time only one. Now they are raising 5 children and loving every moment of it....BUT

The state will not let them adopt, they have no legal protection. IF she were to die, all 5 kids could be taken away.

[Catherine Vincent]

15. "He is still (never said it) believes that gay men are all pedophiles."

There are a lot of ignorant people that believe that. A friend of mine had recently moved into a new apartment and we were waiting on someone outside the complex and one of the tenants came over to chat with us. He was telling us about the tenant that lives below my friend stating that he is gay. He didn't say anything bad except that he caught him watching gay porn and he had to tell him to close his blinds. I told him that it's nobody's business what one watches in their own home and agreed that he should have closed his blinds. But then the guy starts in saying that he doesn't care which way anyone swings but if I catch them messing with any kids blah blah. I interrupted him and said the gay community is not who you have to worry about messing with any kids. I said it is heteorsexual men that mostly are pedophiles. Of course he didn't know what to say after that.

[Maru Kitteh]

20. Pedophilles are not gay or hetero - they are PEDOPHILES

Which means their sexual prefrence is children. Not men, not women - children.

[serryjw]

22. I know what you are saying but

they do have a sexual orientation...It's much easier to hate them if they are gay.I find it amusing that he could understand why lesbians would want to be parent but not gay men....The desire to parent obviously doesn't have a gender. MY brother adopted a new born baby at 49....As a woman, I never had any desire to parent......go figure.

[NVMojo]

23. let's see ...my first foster parents were right wingers who got a divorce

a few months after I moved in cuz he was boffing the church secretary. I think I would have been happier with some of the gay couples I know today ...

those two twisted fuckers took me to get "saved" the first week I moved in with them and then they wanted demons exercised out of me so I played Linda Blair just so they would leave me the feck alone after that ...then he went off with the secretary. Yeah, I think I would have rather lived with a happy gay couple ...

[mbee]

24. Tipper Gore is featured in the November issue of Traditional Home

magazine. One thing mentioned in the article is the support that is needed by older foster children of 18 years or so. She said they need mentors and just someone who cares. She is pictured with a dog she and Al adoped from the Humane Society named Bo. I so enjoyed reading this article and recommend it.

[serryjw]

26. You are out of the system at 18

I think many kids need mentors even if they were raised in a nuclear family. I was on my college capus doing petitions and a Prof signed the petition. I said something that ( that he thought was brilliant!). I said "these kids are all choosing majors based on the need today NOT 20 years from now." It's a shame that there is so little support past 18..they are still kids that need direction.

[wellstone dem]

25. My daughter was in foster care for almost 5 years.

I adopted her when she was 9. She was abused and neglected by her straight parents and/or the caretakers they left her with. At the time she was placed with me she might have cared about being adopted by a gay parent or couple, but that would only have been because she hadn't lived in that kind of family before. She was scared to be adopted by anyone. Now she wouldn't care.

As to wanting to be out of foster care? At the time she probably would have said no. Just as she didn't want to leave her foster parents or her birth parents because "at least I knew what life with them was like." Now she tells me she would have wanted to leave them if she had known how different her life could be.

And just so folks know there can be a good ending. My daughter is 17, she is working, she just got a 43 out of 42 on her first math test in her senior year (math is her hardest subject, and she answered the extra credit questions), and she is planning on going to college next year. She is kind, compassionate, and progressive. Oh, and she's opinionated too. (She once thanked me for not hitting her when she disagreed with me. :-( I told her that was the way life was supposed to be, but that it would be ok if she disagreed with me a little less. :-) ) She has had unbelievable struggles as she has faced what happened to her as a child, and as she has had to learn with the emotional scars that come from abuse. But she beat the odds.

I am SO PROUD of her.