Via Bareknucklepolitics, this story from Herald Today, “Ohio lawmaker to propose ban on GOP adoption”:
If an Ohio lawmaker’s proposal becomes state law, Republicans would be barred from being adoptive parents.
State Sen. Robert Hagan sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to “introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents.” The e-mail ended with a request for co-sponsorship.
On Thursday, the Youngstown Democrat said he had not yet found a co-sponsor.
Hagan said his “tongue was planted firmly in cheek” when he drafted the proposed legislation. However, Hagan said that the point he is trying to make is nonetheless very serious.
Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.
“We need to see what we are doing,” said Hagan, who called Hood’s proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill “homophobic.”
Hood’s bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.
To further lampoon Hood’s bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that “credible research” shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing “emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.”
Or, in other words, Hagan found an opportunity to take cheap shots at all Republicans based on the policy proposal of a few Republican lawmakers who may or may not be “homophobic.”
The satire is mildly amusing, I must say, but even so, it betrays yet again the groupthink of political democrats, who find it easier to dismiss as “homophobes” or “racists” or “misogynists” those who disagree with their progressive policy prescriptions—many of which can and should be debated on the grounds that innumerable past attempts at social engineering have proven to be failures, and to actual worsen the social climate by introducing unintended consequences.
I haven’t read Hood’s legislation and so I certainly can’t know for certain what role “homophobia” plays in it. But what I can say without even knowing much about the proposal is that there are legitimate social questions and concerns contained therein—one of which has to do with preference: if a heterosexual couple is available to adopt, should this “traditional” family dynamic receive default first consideration.
You see this type of question raised by progressives themselves in other contexts: should black babies up for adoption be held until a suitable black family can be found (the reasoning often going to ability of the child to best assimilate and learn a particular “heritage”); I believe the answer to that question to be no—and I believe those who raise it do so by privileging a certain faulty idea of identity formation—but I nevertheless recognize the legitimacy of the question and can respond to it with more than a simply declaration that those asking it are necessarily racist.
For my own part, I think gay adoption is fine—but I do think traditional parent families should receive precendence, because I think it in the best interest of the child. However, adoption by a gay couple (and all sorts of legal issues peculiar to the legal status of gay couples and custody arise here, should the couple split up—another consideration that need be factored in, and one of the reasons I support civil unions) is certainly, to my mind, better than foster care or state rearing.
Which is to say there is nothing per se “wrong” with gay adoption in my view; just that there are socially more preferable arrangements, both from a traditionalist and (current) legal standpoint.
I welcome that discussion—which takes seriously the position of many conservatives who do not, of necessity, fall back on fundamentalist religious teachings in order to introduce legislation.
Instead, we get cheap intimations of gay hatred from a legislator, and the typical follow-on hyperbole by those whose thinking cannot seem to plumb below the ad hominem line.
(thanks to Alice Woods)
– If its parity in numbers hes really after hes wasting his time. What he should be doing is flood emailing every Liberal group in America calling a cease and desist on abortions across the board before the left becomes extinct.
BECAUSE OF SODOMY!
Have you ever considered the possibility that you hate and fear gays because you yourself are gay goldstein ?
I think you should see Brokeback Mountain a view more times and see if it changes your viewpoint.
I myself am afraid of wombats.
Of course, this is due to my fear that I may, in my secret heart, actually fear that I AM a wombat…
Nice waste of taxpayers money playing childish games.. What a fng moron….Tongue in cheek so to say……asshole
So this so-called politician has no problem discriminating against gay Republicans?! Homophobe!
No, no, you’ve got it all wrong Parker. What you actually fear is that you want to have sex with a wombat. Key difference there.
Hmmm…see “Brokeback Mountain.”
BWAAAAHAAAAA…
That’s what the gay adoption (and foster care) ban is. A disagreement with progressive policy prescriptions, which us gentlemen prefer to debate.
I heard a bit of Hagan on Michael Medved’s show today..and anyone that challenged him, no matter what, he came right out and called ‘em homophobes
… regardless of the bill he is challenging.
I haven’t read the “ban” bill, so I have no idea how draconian it may be. If it is an outright ban, then it should lose. Children should not languish in either group or foster care because a willing adoptive person or couple are homosexuals.
But, as Jeff has stated, all things being equal, a heterosexual-couple should be given preference, then homosexuals, then singles.
Because adoption is about best interests of the child NOT the adoptive couples.
IMHO, transgender people have enough issues to deal with and should be out of the adoption loop.
How is this ‘preference’ to be done? Like, when there’s a shortage of children? Or heteros always move to the head of the line? The latter may effectively ban gay adoption, if hetero couples enter the line at the same rate that the adoption service processes them.
Actually, I think that’s kind of funny. Have a sense of humor, people.
actus
Like, when there’s a shortage of children?
First off, get this straight. Children are not commodities. People don’t walk down to the adoption agency and pick up this week’s flavor of kid. Qualifying for adoption is a lengthy and expensive process and no one going into it knows at the end which, if any, child they will be up for.
There are more prospective adoptive parents than infants, but older children take longer to place. True, same-sex couples may end up not being able to compete in the infant section, but if one is truly looking to get kids out of institutional care, there will be plenty of hard-to-place older children for them to adopt.
And we are talking only public adoption by non-related couples. Private adoptions are a whole other world and some same-sex couples even look to having a child biologically related to at least one of the partners (via surrogate or artificial insemination).
As long as best interest of the child is the ruling criteria, heterosexual couples will always be first choice.
I trust this is so. But then they must use an entirely different standard than custody court…
Big Bang Hunter  Sssh!
As someone who actually was adopted, I can appreciate the adoption process. So yes, I can and do actually discuss this issue as a gentleman. And just as being anti-gay marriage doesn’t necessarily make one a homophobe, advocationg for either a ban or allowing for a continuum of preference in adoption doesn’t make one a homophobe. Prospective hetero adoptive couples are evaluated all the time. Should we not evaluate the wellfare of the child in a same-sex couple household simply to prove we aren’t gay bashin’ rubes?
There are all sorts of attendant concerns that can be discussed but which are forestalled the moment the debate is reduced to silly ad hominems from lazy thinkers who only want to bait conservatives.
It’s tiresome.
I tried to adopt an eighteen year old korean girl once.
Couldn’t get the loan, though.
I agree with that mostly, but think we should assess all prospective parents as individuals, gay or straight. Banning all gays outright would also fall under groupthink it seems to me.
You know what I mean when I say a ‘shortage.’ I mean more adopters than there are kids. Which I don’t think there are, since there seem to still be kids in foster care.
If we are to let some categories of couples have first pick, then I think we may end up also categorizing the children. The types that have the most sought after characteristics: age, race, etc… will end up in one kind of home, while the less often chosen will end up in another. Something about that segregation bothers me, specially when it comes due to people that argue that gay couples cause problems for the kids.
I agree. Outright electioneering bans on adoption don’t work to advance the debate. Narrow majoritarianism isn’t a good way to figure out what is in the best interests of a child or a couple. And it sure is a silly ad hominen to call someone categorically deficient for raising a child based on their lifestyle.
Seems to me lifestyle should be the main consideration in deciding whether someone is to be approved or rejected for adopting a child.
TW:A child should only be adopted by a MARRIED couple, IMO.
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HIC. Damn straight! Respect my differences!
TW: It SURE is, actus, it SURE is.
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hic how does this internets work again? i think y’alls on the money actus
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oh fvckit
Darleen, don’t respond to actus. He/she/it can’t respond to a post in either an intelligent or a humorous manner and falls back on the usual ad hominen idocies and saggy strawmen.
You can’t debate with actus because he/she/it doesn’t want a debate, so don’t bother wasting your time.
word: found. “Found that out a long time ago.”
I would find this debate hilarious if not for it being so close to home.
When my wife and I were selected by the birthmother as the adoptive parents of my daughter, she didn’t need to ask about sexual orientation. If she cared, she could have asked for a gay couple and chose them. It is already hard enough to adopt, why would we bar birth mothers from the parents of their choice?
If we are only talking about the kids that are hard to place, why would we make it harder for them to get into loving homes? We were all but barred from adopting a child of a different race and we didn’t have the financial strength to adopt a “special needs†child (state decision).
Our only real option was to market ourselves to birth mothers and hope to be chosen. We were lucky.
Adoptive parents are put through an emotional and financial ringer. It takes a whole lot of drive, love, cash and tears to successfully navigate the Byzantine laws and government agencies. Anyone who willingly signs up for this kind of abuse is going to be a good parent.
word: waiting. “Waiting to be chosen”
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