High court proclaims gay adoption legal

Fantastic! I can't wait to adopt my first gay! My apartment will become a fabulous pad and maybe I'll finally get some dress sense.

Whatever Portnoy. You're always rocking the coolest sneaks!

Oh Portnoy don't even imagine.

lol

seriously, it's very good news from the High Court.

It's still only the right to adopt their partners kid - what about adopting any kid giving up for adoption?

No way dude. The kid should be brought up in a hetro environment and then be allowed to make his own decision later in life whether or not to moor his boat in poo bay.

hetro environment?

Can we all now point and scream homophobe?

Awesomely good news

Crassic

really pleased about this although it is just one small step. The UK, tardy on a whole range of progressive laws, actually allowed single gay people to adopt back in the mid-90s and allowed gay couples to foster and adopt in the same way as heterosexual couples back in 2006.

I think it is a great move but I don't agree that it is a small step. Also lets hope that the German experience does not end up mimicing the British experience. Where social workers were so intimidated by the 'knee jerk - you hate them because they are gay lobby' that they (according to the inquiry) failed to respond to signs of abuse in Yorkshires first gay foster couple. Both Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey were later jailed for paedophilia.

The childrens rights are what is important here not the prospective fosters or adopters.

Agreed, trollydolly, and that's what makes this a great move. Ignoring the vastly larger numbers of child abuse and sexual assault in mom-n-dad households (too well documented, still too prevalent), politicians had instead focused on some boogie-man of gays (here men, rather than lesbians) who were presumably just waiting to get their hands on the little kiddies. The result: parents who wanted to provide homes blocked from doing so.

When we stop focusing on the sexual relationships of the parents to each other and refocus on providing good, caring, and stable homes for kids, this system works.

first, they were far from being Yorkshire's first gay foster carers. Gay fostering has been legal in England and Wales since the mid 1980s so I would find it extraordinary that Yorkshire held out for 20 years without ever using gay or lesbian foster carers.

Second, foster care is NOT the same as adoption. The children are often only with the carers temporarily while parent or parents are ill, where there are legal proceedings or where ultimately the child is being placed for adoption or care.

Third, although the judge criticised the social services for ignoring one early sign (one child's mother found a photograph of her son urinating while visiting her son in their care) nowhere did he say that social workers did not take action because of a fear of being accused of homophobia. Sadly there is such a critical shortage of foster carers in England that sometimes social services are reluctant to intervene.

Fourthly, you use this example as if it in some way demonstrates that the UK experience with gay foster care is in some way deficient. And yet you present no other evidence to that. If you actually knew about the processes around gay adoption in England and Wales you would not be making such ignorant assumptions.

Finally, what Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey did was utterly deplorable but it would be wrong to pretend that only gay foster carers have been at fault here. Sadly there are many many cases of straight foster carers doing the same over the years. In fact a study and Johns Hopkins, identified that up to 75% of children leaving foster care in the USA for adoption had experience some form of abuse during their period in foster care.

Child abuse is a terrible thing but it is no more an issue for straight or gay parents. And trying to build a case that because one gay foster carer couple abused children is evidence that a politically correct system is more attuned to the rights of the gay parents than the children in their care just shows how immersed in a Daily Mail world view you are.

Childrens rights should come first but the only gay people allowed to adopt are the gay partners of biological parents. This IS a very small step as the parents concerned were already caring for the children anyway. The law just now recognises their legal right to have a say in the child's upbringing and care. AFAIK gay people are not allowed to either foster or adopt children from care in Germany. Allowing THAT would be a big step.

Its interesting that the picture is of two men but the court case was dealing with two women, typical. And the case itself seems very particular, I personally agree with the lower court and its decision which was not based on sexuality but rather the rights of biological parents - which IMHO should be above those of later partners regardless of orientation.

I think the welfare of the child should always be dearer to us than pc-considerations.

what is that supposed to mean matajari? Why is it "PC" to allow the life partner of a biological parent to adopt the child? I would have said it was very much in the interest of the child as well.

And as for biological parents who have split - surely Germany could do the same as the UK and allow then access to the children even if they have been fully adopted by the new stepparent?

Steady, Steady. I have not suggested that I don't agree with the judgement. In this case it was probably right and in the interest of the child. Political correctness has many faces. If the majority of the population is against gay adoption it would mean appeasing them. Anyway the interest of the child should be paramount.

Do I think it it appropriate for gay couples to adopt children that are not at least the biological children of one partner: No, I don't think that is appropriate again out of consideration of the interest of the child. Perhaps this is the muslim in me speaking, but to burden a child that is not yours with growing up in a same sex household borders child abuse.I don't know where you get your information from, but German law doesn't forbid access to the biological father if a child has been fully adopted by another. I personally know many cases where this access definetly happens. Perhaps you can elaborate on this.

matajari, there may be many here willing to automatically associate your Muslim faith with narrow-mindedness, but I'm not one of them. That's all your own.

matajari, I suggest you go out and meet some gay people bringing up kids. You seem to have some very odd ideas about how they do it. Most of these families differ from heterosexual parent households only in the genders of the parents - otherwise they are much the same. It is therefore misplaced that you automatically assume such households would have a negative impact on the child and heterosexual households would always be positive. The reality is that there are good and bad parents of both sexualities.

it was YOU that was originally saying that giving parental rights to step parents would deprive biological parents of their rights. If that is not the case then what on earth is your problem?

Personally I think any adoption is good whether the kid was gay or not. What I refuse to do is adopt to this idea of eating bread with a slice of pig at night and calling it dinner, now that is gay. No offense BTC or Tito if you wish.

Thanks a lot really? Does it actually occur to you that I could have written the same were I devout catholic or evangelical? The point is that I enjoyed a upringing in a not very conservative (by indian standards) muslim family. I am not religious. That you think I exclusively identify being muslim with not being fine with same-sex couples adopting children is actually passing back the buck to you. Ok, I searched my previous posts and can't come up with the quote you seem to refer to. Let's make it clear: I am not against adoption of any kind. I recognise adoption can be a way for children who have lost their parents or one parent either by death or because they divorced. I don't think I have ever said something different.

As to the gay adoption issue: I have already gotten a lot of stick for that and it doesn't play well with my liberal convictions. But I think every child needs a female and male part in his life and the chance to develop his own sexuality independently. I don't think this is possible in a gay household. I am therefore against adoption of children by same-sex couple, if there is no reason absolutely necessitating it. If the mother finds out she is gay divorces and now lives with a new female partner adoption is fine with me. But without any reason? I think that should only be possible if there is no alternative.

Ok, I don't know where you come from, but eating a sandwich as a meal is common in western culture. You can have cheese on your slice of bread if you like. Or you can be the rich guy who eates a warm meal three nights a day and gets preposterously fat and ill. I hope you don't die of a heart attack ;P

First, the sexuality of one's parents has absolutely no influence on the sexual orientation of children. If it did then there would be almost no gay people at all since most of us have heterosexual parents. There is a little bit of evidence that children brought up by gay parents tend to be more sexually confident and more in tune with their orientation but this is not particularly convincing data and could certainly not be painted as a negative.

As to whether kids should have male and female role models, again I suggest you get to know some gay families. While the two primary care givers may be of a single gender there are almost always a relative or a friend of the opposite gender who plays an important part in their upbringing. In fact gay couples seeking to adopt in the UK are actively encouraged to ensure that this happens.

That being said, even in countries where no such requirement to have role models of both genders, it appears to have very little effect and no discernible negative effects on the child.

instead of relying on your uninformed assumptions to form your opinions on this matter I suggest that you try to actually get to know some gay people before you spout your views on a public forum.

I got to say your uncalled for aggressiveness makes me horny. We should meet..... Look, I am obviously no gay hating maverick and I think the relatively moderate opinion that I propagate here namely that gay adoption should only be considered if there is no alternative or a good reason can be expressed in a public place without reservation at all.

I think the problem here is that gay people should accept a basic fact: A child grows in a woman after the male bee has inpregnated here. There is a need for a woman and a man and no piece of legislation will change that. There are things that are just out of limits.

Holy interdominational scripture, matajari! Stop the gay presses! You mean an egg needs a sperm cell to become an embryo?!!! Frackin' hell, not one gay male or lesbian I know knows that!! All that gay lobby money and, , no legislation either?!

I agree with Mata, kids shouldn't be the chihuahua gay edition... enough troubles they have from being raised like crap.That's gays lamest excuse for supporting same-sex adoption. And completely unfounded...Are you kidding me old timer? Quite some time ago I posted lots of information (scientific, btw, and not based on typical anti-antigay unreferenced quotes) all of them with references, including texts coming straight from the LGT association and neither you or this forum's supporters on that matter couldn't come out with a single truly referenced statement... so what the hell are you talking about...

Instead of relying on your uninformed assumptions based on your constant victimization I suggest that you try to actually get to read a little before you spout your views on a public forum and denigrate someone based on their personal opinions.

"We're protecting children" is pathetic, unfounded and simply knee-jerk small-mindedness. Please, to protect your fellow humans, DO NOT BREED. Idiocy may indeed be inherited.

"We're protecting children" is pathetic, unfounded and simply knee-jerk small-mindedness. Please, to protect your fellow humans, DO NOT BREED. Idiocy may indeed be inherited.

My browser clearly thought you needed to hear it twice, knucklehead.

Unlike you, I was familiar with some of the articles you posted. You ignored my response then because it presumably did not fit in to your obviously skewed world view. And finally I did nothing more than suggest matajari gets to know some gay people before she posts so authoritatively on how we live - that's not denigration, its bleeding obvious.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=qCzbNkyXO50

Has this turned into a slanging match about people being gay and people being anti-gay yet?

I guess I could read through it but I think I know the answer....