Time Magazine: Gay Family Values

[GoddessWhispers]

Gay Family Values

Thursday, Jul. 05, 2007

By TIM PADGETT

Clockwise from left to right Hollie Seeley and Christy Allen with their children, Amelia Allen-Seeley and Foster Allen-Seeley in Congress Park, Denver, CO.

Hollie Seeley and Christy Allen have been together for seven years, own a home in Denver and are raising two kids. So they were disappointed last fall when Colorado voters joined the bandwagon of states that ban same-sex marriage and civil unions. But the couple won a measure of vindication this spring when Governor Bill Ritter signed a bill making Colorado the 10th state to allow gay and lesbian partners to adopt children as couples instead of restricting parental rights to one partner. Now Seeley can legally adopt Allen's biological daughter Amelia, 2, and Allen can adopt Seeley's adopted son Foster, 1, and this ability to become more like other families delights the couple. "Being able to give our children that kind of legal, two-parent security," says Seeley, 36, a medevac nurse, "means more than being able to marry."

It also means a lot to the bill's opponents, who fear that legalizing gay partners' parenthood is tantamount to legitimizing their couplehood. Both sides recognize the paradox: some of the same states that have rejected gay marriage are endorsing gay adoption. After winning constitutional amendments in 11 states to ban gay marriage in 2004, conservatives put gay adoption in their crosshairs last year--and misfired in every state they targeted. Since then, they have continued to suffer legislative defeats in states like Arkansas, which banned gay marriage in 2004 but earlier this year saw a bill to prohibit gay adoption die in committee. Only Florida denies gays and lesbians the right to adopt under any circumstances.

But the gay adoption boom may be less about support for gay rights than it is about the urgency of finding homes for abandoned children. There are as many as 120,000 in the U.S. waiting to be adopted. After Congress ordered states in 1997 to move faster to find more families willing to take in these kids, "child-welfare organizations banded together to get legislatures to allow any qualified parent to adopt, irrespective of sexual orientation," says Rob Woronoff, gay and lesbian program director at the Child Welfare League of America in Washington. The movement got a boost in 2002 when the American Academy of Pediatrics said the "health, adjustment and development" of kids adopted by gay parents were no worse than those of kids placed with heterosexuals. By 2006, a Pew Center poll found, support of gay adoption had risen from 38% in 1999 to 46% and opposition had fallen from 57% to 48%.

(Continues)

Edited July 5, 2007 by GoddessWhispers

[Lt_Ripley]

nice looking family. most of my friends have kids and were open with them when they were young ( most now are grown up) they turned out to be healthy adults ( and all straight ) out of all of them the only one that has had a problem was my ex with her adult son. He's really hit bottom. Drinking , drugging , stopped working even though she came out to him 7 years ago.

but when you get to know him it becomes evident that he may harbor all that hatred because of himself --- he makes my gayday go off the scale. Even his mother thinks he is ( although he makes it loudly known he like girls. a little too loudly so to speak. )

so when if ever he decides to stop punishing himself he may find all that time he wasted being angry and bigoted did nothing.

I told him once he looked like a 'little gay boy' and he looked like somone kicked him in the guts. You know that look of fear that sweeps over a persons face and they turn pale ? that was it.

Edited July 6, 2007 by Lt_Ripley