THE ADOPTION OF CHILDREN BY HOMOSEXUALS
As homosexual persons in the United States increasingly make their personal sexual identities and lifestyle preferences public, their demands for the protection of their civil rights also increases. One of the rights demanded by a growing number of homosexual persons--the right to adopt children--generates enormous controversy. This research examines the issue of the right of homosexual persons to adopt children. A history of the controversy surrounding the issue of child adoption homosexual by homosexual persons is followed by a presentation of the positions of the opposing groups on this issue. These conflicting positions then are analyzed, and a tentative conclusion is drawn with respect to the right of homosexual persons to adopt children.
While the reality of the adoption of children by homosexual individuals dates far back in history, the controversy over the practice is of relatively recent origin (Boswell 35-37). The explanation for this anomaly is that until relatively recently most homosexual persons went to great lengths to keep secret their sexual identities. The open adoption of children was not consistent with concealing a homosexual identity. The controversy over the adoption of children by homosexual persons in the United States, thus, dates to the late-1960s when, in the wake of increasing numbers of homosexual persons beginning to make public their sexual identities, the desires of many of these persons to adopt children also began to become public knowledge (Boswell 35-37).
State laws in the United States, however, either prohibited the adoption of children by homosexual persons or was silent on the issue. Thus, homosexuals desiring to adopt children had to either challenge the law or challenge in court denials by state agencies of adoption applications on the grounds that such adoption was not in the best interests of the child regardless of the silence of the...