ACLU Applds Defeat of Anti-Gay Adoptn and Foster Care Bill; Calls Defeat a Tremendo Victory for Arkansas Children | Amerin Civil Liberti Unn

Contents:

• ACLU CHALLENG FLORIDA BAN ON LBIAN AND GAY ADOPTN
• ACLU APPLDS DEFEAT OF ANTI-GAY ADOPTN AND FOSTER CARE BILL; CALLS DEFEAT A TREMENDO VICTORY FOR ARKANSAS CHILDREN
• ACLU FIGHTS FLORIDA'S GAY ADOPTN BAN
• WHY THE FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN IS IMMORAL
• ACLU CHALLENGE TO FLORIDA'S ANTI-GAY ADOPTN LAW GETS A BOOST OM SUPREME COURT GAY RIGHTS RULG
• ACLU SU MICHIGAN OVER GAY ADOPTN SCREENG
• ACLU ARGU CASE CHALLENGG FLORIDA'S GAY ADOPTN BAN
• LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

ACLU CHALLENG FLORIDA BAN ON LBIAN AND GAY ADOPTN

The threats of anti-gay and anti-child legislatn have e rponse to the creased willgns of urts, policymakers and legislators to regnize that lbians and gay men n be good parents and should be evaluated on their parentg skills, rather than their sexual orientatn.

The Amerin Psychology Associatn, a recent report reviewg the rearch, observed that “not a sgle study has found children of gay or lbian parents to be disadvantaged any signifint rpect relative to children of heterosexual parents” and nclud that “home environments provid by gay and lbian parents are as likely as those provid by heterosexual parents to support and enable children’s psychosocial growth. All of the available evince monstrat that the sexual orientatn of parents has no impact on the sexual orientatn of their children and that children of lbian and gay parents are no more likely than any other child to grow up to be gay.

The ACLU has found that the more legislators and the public get to hear the real-life stori of lbians and gay men who are buildg fai through adoptn and other means, the more succs we have featg anti-gay, anti-child adoptn proposals. As a rult of the historic nature of the New Jersey settlement, which guarante that gay and heterosexual unmarried upl seekg to adopt will be evaluated by the same standards as married upl, right-wg anizatns immediately vowed to overturn the agreement the state legislature. For example, the Child Welfare League of Ameri, which sets natnal standards for children’s servic and is the olst and largt children’s advocy anizatn the untry, says that gays and lbians seekg to adopt should be evaluated jt like everybody else.

ACLU APPLDS DEFEAT OF ANTI-GAY ADOPTN AND FOSTER CARE BILL; CALLS DEFEAT A TREMENDO VICTORY FOR ARKANSAS CHILDREN

The ACLU’s seven clients clu a gay man who wh his partner has raised three foster children sce fancy, other dividuals who wish to bee parents, and a heterosexual uple who have asked a gay relative Florida to adopt their children the event of their aths. Last month, New Hampshire lawmakers repealed that state’s 12-year-old ban on gay adoptn and foster parentg, leavg Florida the only state where children are nied adoptive parents on the basis of the sexual orientatn of their potential adoptive parents. “If succsful, this lawsu will remove an outdated, blanket prohibn on gay and lbian adults beg adoptive parents, a law that is based on ltle more than ignorance and prejudice, ” said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida.

In other words, when the Florida legislature passed the gay adoptn ban, there had not been a sgle reported se of an adoptn by an LGBT person that tells that the Florida adoptn ban, om the very begng, has been more about polics and sendg a msage of disapproval of homosexualy than about the well-beg of children. Ined, one of the state senators who sponsored the ban explaed at the time that "the problem Florida is that homosexuals are surfacg to such an extent that they're begng to aggravate the ordary folks, who have rights of their own.

ACLU FIGHTS FLORIDA'S GAY ADOPTN BAN

" The law, he add, was aimed at tellg gay people to stay the ban was part of the backlash stoked by social nservativ like Ana Bryant after Da County, the mid-1970s, beme the first southern municipaly to enact a gay rights ordance. Lbians and gay men, then, are apparently good enough to provi re for children when no one else will, but not good enough to be emed the full legal parents of those very same children, wh the kd of stabily and ntuy the children's liv that would e wh such a have been other efforts to challenge the ban before, cludg one the feral urts a few years ago that failed.

That's why way back 1966, the ACLU of Michigan velopg a groundbreakg, first-of-s-kd mtee to addrs issu facg lbians and gay 2001, the ACLU of Michigan found the LGBT Project, a dited longterm legal and advocy project foced on advancg equaly our state.

{mosads}By law, the ACLU said the state is rponsible for the re of the children Michigan’s foster re system and n neher tegorilly turn away gay and lbian prospective parents nor e relig creria makg cisns related to child welfare.

WHY THE FLORIDA GAY ADOPTN BAN IS IMMORAL

Every mastream child advocy and mental health anizatn, cludg the Child Welfare League of Ameri, the Amerin Amy of Pediatrics, Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, Amerin Psychologil Associatn and Natnal Associatn of Social Workers, is opposed to excludg gay people om adoptn. The prev edn, which was tled Lbian and Gay Parentg: A Rource for Psychologists (1995) was the succsor to a publitn tled Lbian Parents and Their Children: A Rource Paper for Psychologists that was jotly produced by CLGBC and CWP 1991.

Unlike heterosexual parents and their children, however, lbian and gay parents and their children are often subject to prejudice bee of their sexual orientatn that n turn judg, legislators, profsnals, and the public agast them, sometim rultg negative out, such as loss of physil ctody, rtrictns on visatn, and prohibns agast adoptn (ACLU Lbian and Gay Rights Project, 2002; Appell, 2003; Patterson, Fulcher, & Waright, 2002). As this summary will show, the rults of existg rearch parg lbian and gay parents to heterosexual parents and children of lbian and gay parents to children of heterosexual parents are que clear: Common stereotyp are not supported by the data. The relevance of this cricism has been greatly rced as rearch has expand to explore life a wir array of lbian mother and gay father fai (many of which have never lived through the divorce of a heterosexual uple), and as newer studi beg to clu a wir array of ntrol groups.

Other cricisms have been that most studi have been based on relatively small sampl, that there have been difficulti wh asssment procr employed some studi, and that the classifitn of parents as lbian, gay, or heterosexual has been problematic.

ACLU CHALLENGE TO FLORIDA'S ANTI-GAY ADOPTN LAW GETS A BOOST OM SUPREME COURT GAY RIGHTS RULG

An expert readg of the Sarantakos article reveals that certa characteristics of s methodology and sample are highly likely to have skewed the rults and renred them an valid ditor of the well-beg of children raised by gay and lbian parents at least three rpects:.

ACLU SU MICHIGAN OVER GAY ADOPTN SCREENG

The children raised by gay and lbian parents experienced unually high levels of extreme social ostracism and overt hostily om other children and parents, which probably acunted for the former's lower levels of teractn and social tegratn wh peers (see pp. Some nonscientific anizatns have attempted to nvce urts that there is an actual scientific dispute this area by cg rearch performed by Pl Cameron as supportg the existence of fics gay and lbian parents or their children pared to heterosexual parents or their children.

ACLU ARGU CASE CHALLENGG FLORIDA'S GAY ADOPTN BAN

Three ncerns have historilly been associated wh judicial cisn makg ctody ligatn and public polici erng foster re and adoptn: the belief that lbians and gay men are mentally ill, that lbians are ls maternal than heterosexual women, and that lbians' and gay men's relatnships wh sexual partners leave ltle time for ongog parent-child teractns (ACLU Lbian and Gay Rights Project, 2002; Falk, 1989, 1994; Patterson et al., 2002; Patterson & Reddg, 1996). Many years ago, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn removed "homosexualy" om s list of mental disorrs, statg that "homosexualy per se impli no impairment judgment, stabily, reliabily, or general social or votnal pabili" (Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, 1974).

In 1975, the Amerin Psychologil Associatn took the same posn and urged all mental health profsnals to help dispel the stigma of mental illns that had long been associated wh homosexual orientatn (Amerin Psychologil Associatn, 1975). The cisn to remove homosexual orientatn om the list of mental disorrs reflects extensive rearch nducted over three s showg that homosexual orientatn is not a psychologil maladjtment (Gonsrek, 1991; Hart, Roback, Ttler, Wez, Walston, & McKee, 1978; Reiss, 1980).

There is no reliable evince that homosexual orientatn per se impairs psychologil functng, although the social and other circumstanc which lbians and gay men live, cludg exposure to wispread prejudice and discrimatn, often e acute distrs (Cochran, 2001; Freedman, 1971; Gonsrek, 1991; Hart et al., 1978; Hooker, 1957; Meyer, 2003; Reiss, 1980). Beliefs that lbian and gay adults are not f parents likewise have no empiril foundatn (Anrssen, Amlie, & Ytteroy, 2002; Brewaeys & van Hall, 1997; Parks, 1998; Patterson, 2000; Patterson & Chan, 1996; Perr, 2002; Stacey & Biblarz, 2001; Tasker, 1999; Victor & Fish, 1995). A recent study of 256 lbian and gay parent fai found that, ntrast to patterns characterizg the majory of Amerin parents, very few lbian and gay parents reported any e of physil punishment (such as spankg) as a disciplary technique; stead, they were likely to report e of posive techniqu such as reasong (Johnson & O'Connor, 2002).

LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

Certaly, rearch has found no reasons to believe lbian mothers or gay fathers to be unf parents (Armto, 2002; Barret & Robson, 1990; Bigner & Bozett, 1990; Bigner & Jabsen, 1989a, 1989b; Bos et al., 2003, 2004; Bozett, 1980, 1989; Patterson, 1997; Patterson & Chan, 1996; Sbordone, 1993; Tasker & Golombok, 1997; Victor & Fish, 1995; Wton, 1991). For stance, one such ncern is that children brought up by lbian mothers or gay fathers will show disturbanc genr inty and/or genr role behavr (Falk, 1989, 1994; Hchens & Kirkpatrick, 1985; Kleber, Howell, & Tibbs-Kleber, 1986; Patterson et al., 2002; Patterson & Reddg, 1996). For example, urts have exprsed fears that children the ctody of gay or lbian parents will be more vulnerable to mental breakdown, will exhib more adjtment difficulti and behavr problems, and will be ls psychologilly healthy than other children.

Three aspects of sexual inty are nsired the rearch: genr inty, which ncerns a person's self-intifitn as male or female; genr-role behavr, which ncerns the extent to which a person's activi, occupatns, and the like are regard by the culture as mascule, feme, or both; and sexual orientatn, which refers to a person's choice of sexual partners, who may be homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual (Money & Ehrhardt, 1972; Ste, 1993).