Gay Adoption

As far as social issues are concerned, I'm usually pretty libertarian. With restrictions for the safety of minors, I'm okay with porn, pot legalization, and prostitution. I also don't care at all about gay marriage. Pretty much the only things I'm "conservative" on socially are life issues. I abhor abortion and euthanasia. But deep down where I don't want to confront things, I'm opposed to gay adoption. I hadn't stopped to analyze why, but I am. Before I get cries of racist, homophobic, nazi, fascist, keep in mind that my reasoning and analysis is ongoing as well as complicated.

I don't have a problem if someone is gay. It annoys me when an individual demands acceptance or deference based on their minority status alone, but as long as there is none of that, there is a chance to earn my respect.

So if I don't have anything personal against homosexuals, why don't I want them to adopt children?

I think I've figured out part of the answer. I read part of Rosie O'Donnell's interview with Barbara Walters Rosie's comments on raising her children without a father struck me.

"They bring it up," Rosie says on the April 8th edition of "20/20" (ABC, 10 p.m. EST). "Sometimes I'll pick PARKER up at school and he's very dramatic and he'll say, 'Do you know how hard my life is?' And I'm like, 'No, tell me.' He goes, 'First of all, I got a mother who's famous -- so everybody's like Rosie! Rosie! Rosie! And you're gay! Do you know what that feels like for me?'"

Rosie says she was taken aback by his boldness. "I said 'I have no idea. I never had any of those things, but I'm willing to listen to everything you have to say,'" she says. "And so he tells me his feelings and I said, 'What do you think you would do with a dad, if you had one?'" He's like, 'I don't know, like play baseball,' And I said, 'Well, you're lucky because I am one of the best baseball players -- in fact, I was in a movie about baseball!'"

So she says they got the mitts and gave baseball a try. "My opinion is, you tell them everything that they ask you," she says. "I feel like they should be able to express themselves in any way that they feel appropriate."

Now aside from my personal differences with her parenting style (because I feel that my kids should be able to express themselves in any way that I feel is appropriate), I think her kid is onto something. I think there is a certain imbalance in raising children without a male or female presence. Despite the cliches and rumors, a gay man does not give children a woman's perspective and vice versa, and like it or not, those children wouldn't be here without both genders. I guess I feel that every child should have an adult of both genders in their lives, and for all the stability and financial security, there is just something missing from a gay household. And as undervalued as I believe fathers are in society today, it makes me sadder to think of a child being raised without a mother.

I realize I'm making a typical liberal's argument by attacking and not offering any kind of solution. Part of me just wants these kids to be with someone who cares deeply about them, but another part of me says that by allowing gay adoption, we are sweeping important issues of gender equality under a rug for society as a whole, not just for the kids. I mean, gay parents can't adopt without straight people to make the kids and Rosie, to her credit, admits as much. But I can't help feeling that this biological propensity indicates the natural superiority of male and female parents.

Again, I can't really offer any solutions and it seems like such a small thing compared to the horrors these kids might face without any kind of family. But it still nags at me.