Rights for Co Parents for Same Sex Couples

Rights for Co parents for Same Sex Couples

There are about one hundred thousand plus children whose parents' legal rights have been terminated and who are waiting to be adopted, not including children sixteen year of age and older. With all these children in need of a home, adoption agencies select parents for children by race and ethnicity, gender, age, and based on the child's special needs. Children who are waiting to be adopted just want to feel like they are a part of a family and that they have some place they can call home that is special to them. People who believe that homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children are not considering the needs of the children who just want to feel loved. If homosexuals have the desire to adopt children and make them feel love, safe, and provided for, there should not be a law against them because they are nontraditional in society. There are not many places in United States that same sex couples are allowed to adopt children, while there are a few countries that allow same sex couples to adopt. What do these countries know that we don't know? Have they stopped worrying about the sexual orientation of the couple and focus more on the quality of the family they can offer or have they defined a family or parents as a two people that loves each other, provide for the children, and make them feel safe and cared for. If this is the definition of a parent, than why not allow homosexuals the change to adopted children or be co parents.

If homosexuals have the desire to adopt children and make them feel love, safe, and provided for, there should not be a law against them because they are nontraditional in society. People who believe that homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt a child are afraid that if they support couples of the same sex they will lose the respect of their peer or they are the religious type. They use the excuse that the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin. Religion plays a big role in our government. People who use the word of God as an excuse usually say that God did not make "Adam and Steve or Eve and Emma" (Clarke). Most government officials use a religious platform to get elected. Religious people prefer the traditional values especially in the home. They believe that a family must consist of a mother and father to raise the children and "homosexuality is not a traditional value," said Mr. Walker of Alberta's Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). Lesbians and gay parenting is nontraditional because it is a perversion of Gods plan for the human race and morally wrong and the nuclear family is the God ordained normal of society (Clarke).

However, not all homes in society have both parents living in the same household. There are many single mother and fathers out there raising healthy and emotionally stable children without the opposite sex parent in the household, but others are afraid that if more homosexual couples are allowed to adopt then the traditional nuclear family might just dwindle away. People are just afraid of how "unnatural" it is because biology speaking it takes a male and a female to produce a baby but it does not take both to raise a baby (Clarke). Those who are against same sex adoption do not know what the couple has to go through.

The co parent in a same sex relationship has to face that, in a court of law; they are not legally recognized as one of the child's parents. If said child is sick, the co parent does not have any say in that child's medical care because the hospital would not consider the co parent to be a legal guardian. Then there is the chance that the child's legal parent die; the co parent fears that the child might be taken away and put up for adoption because the co parent dose not have any legal right to keep the child if that child is underage. Second parents can not put said children on their health plan and said children would not be able to receive any appropriate entitlements, such as Social Security survivors' benefits. In many ways the legal system is also hurting the children's welfare to since the co parents is not allowed to provide for their children as if they were their own.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) states that children who are born to or adopted by one member of a homosexual relationship deserve the security of two legally recognized parents. Children of same sex couples should feel that, if something happens to one of their parents, the other one would be able to take care of them. According to the APP policy statement: co parents or second parent adoption in a same sex relationship provides for the guarantees that the second parent's custody rights will be protected if the first parent falls ill or dies, and it protects the second parent's right to custody and visitation if the couple separates by also