2004 became the year of gay marriage after hardliners at both the federal and state levels pushed for a legal ban on marriage for same-sex couples. The politicization of gay adoption soon followed.

State Restrictions

"We have seen anti-gay foster care and adoption measures pop up in states over the last several years," says Corri Planck, deputy executive director of Family Pride, a nationwide group that promotes equality for LGBT families. "Thankfully most of them — the outright bans — have been unsuccessful."

Nevertheless, some states, like Florida, have passed an outright ban making it illegal for gay people to adopt, and several states have passed other types of restrictions on gay adoption.

Utah, for example, has a de facto ban on gay adoption through a law that limits adoption to married couples, excluding same-sex couples by definition. In Arizona, the state Senate recently rejected a similar bill by just one vote.

Oklahoma has passed a bill that makes second-parent adoptions granted in other states void in Oklahoma — a measure clearly aimed at gay and lesbian parents who adopt the children of their partners.

In all, 16 states are currently considering measures that would ban or restrict gay adoption. And restrictions are happening outside of legislatures, too.

Massachusetts, which gained national attention when it became the first (and, as yet, the only) state to legalize gay marriage in 2004, recently took center stage in the gay adoption debate when Catholic Charities of Boston announced that it would shut down its adoption program rather than comply with the state's non-discrimination laws.

Catholic bishops behind the move, which was announced in March, justified the decision in part by citing a 2003 Vatican document, which described gay adoptions as "gravely immoral." And since the announcement, other chapters of the organization throughout the country have suggested they may follow the Boston chapter's lead. Catholic Charities of San Francisco, for example, decided to reexamine its practice of granting a small number of adoptions to gay parents.

The Research

Advocates on both sides of the issue cite research to back their claims.

Anti-gay-adoption activists claim that children of gay parents are more likely to be confused about their sexual identity, are at greater risk for abuse, and may become mentally unstable or have problems with social adjustment. But by and large, there is one common theme: "The argument that we hear most frequently is that children do best with a mom and a dad," says Planck.

The research used to support this idea is almost exclusively authored by Dr. Paul Cameron, chairman of the Family Research Institute, an organization whose stated goal is to "generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality..."

The Family Research Institute has in fact generated several studies on the subject, but they have consistently failed to meet scientific standards. Published findings of the group have only appeared in journals with low ranking and prestige in the scientific community. Cameron himself was expelled from the American Psychological Association (APA) and chastised by the American Sociological Association for distorting and misrepresenting his findings.

Contrary to Cameron's claims, the overwhelming majority of research has found no harmful effects of gay parents on children. In fact, the APA has issued a number of reports on gay parenting, which unequivocally conclude that gay parents are equal to their heterosexual counterparts in every way relevant to parenting. In 2004, the APA stated, "Overall, results of research suggest that the development, adjustment, and well-being of children with lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents."

A recent study by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute supports that conclusion, adding that "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 Waiting List

Indeed, the most important consideration in the debate on gay adoption is the question of what happens to the children waiting to be adopted. According to Planck an estimated 120,000 children are adopted each year, and 600,000 are in foster care. Of those 600,000 about 119,000 are eligible for adoption.

"The system is obviously overwhelmed, and there are not enough people in the pool of qualified foster parents and adoptive parents," she says. "If you're really looking at it as a child welfare issue and want to do well by these kids, you need permanent homes."

Rather than restrict someone's eligibility for adopting because of factors that do not affect parenting skills, Planck says, we should be working on ways to bring more families in to adopt the growing number of children who need homes.