Adoption News

Study Finds Adoption By Same-Sex Couples 'Holds Promise' For Children

NEW YORK - The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute released a new report today that finds there is no child-centered reason to prevent gays and lesbians from becoming adoptive parents, and recommends that they be utilized more extensively to provide permanent, loving homes for children living in state care across the country.

"Based on both the available research and growing experience," the report concludes, "adoption by gays and lesbians holds promise as an avenue for achieving permanency for many of the waiting children in foster care."

The Institute report - which is part of a larger, more extensive yearlong project that will be completed and released in several months - is intended to provide a research-based context for the ongoing debate in the United States over the adoption of children by gays and lesbians. Most important, the Institute seeks to develop information to help shape best practices that focus on providing boys and girls in the child welfare system with safe, committed and enduring families.

The principal findings of the report, which is entitled "Expanding Resources for Children," are:

• Against a backdrop of increasing public acceptance, social science research concludes that children reared by gay and lesbian parents fare comparably to those of children raised by heterosexuals on a range of measures of social and psychological adjustment.
• Studies are growing in number and rigor, but the body of research on gay/lesbian parenting is relatively small and has methodological limitations. Still, virtually every valid study reaches the same conclusion: The children of gays and lesbians adjust positively and their families function well. The limited research on gay/lesbian adoption points in the same direction.
• Though few states have laws or policies explicitly barring homosexuals from adopting, some individual agencies and workers outside those states discriminate against gay and lesbian applicants based on their own biases or on mistaken beliefs that such prohibitions exist.
• Laws and policies that preclude adoption by gay or lesbian parents disadvantage the tens of thousands of children mired in the foster care system who need permanent, loving homes.

"The bottom line for those of us who advocate for children is clear," said Adam Pertman, the Executive Director of the Adoption Institute. "There's simply no credible research to indicate that children are harmed in any way when they're adopted by gay and lesbian parents, but there's lots of evidence to indicate that they do well in those homes. So, if we as a society believe that kids should be our primary concern, we have to put aside our prejudices and preconceived notions, and do the best we can for them."

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	Did You Know?
	Most adoptive parents are two parent families Most adoptive parents are two parent families aged 31 to 40. A growing number of parents are aged 41 to 49. Most parents attended or completed college. Children can be adopted from other countries Adopting children from all over the world has become something U.S. residents and citizens have been doing more and more when starting or expanding their families. Over 20,000 inter-country adoptions are taking place per year in addition to the more than Adoption assistance is available Monthly or one-time only subsidy payments to help adoptive parents raise children with special needs. These payments were initially made possible by the enactment of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-272) which provided Federa