| Part 1 Dale O'Leary on
the Risks
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, 4 NOV. 2004 (ZENIT)
Despite the large number of securely married people waiting to adopt
children, same-sex couples are often regarded as desirable adoptive
parents with equal qualifications.
So says Dale O'Leary, a writer and researcher for the Catholic Medical
Association.
She shared with ZENIT how adoption agencies have disregarded evidence
that persons with same-sex attractions are far more likely to suffer
from psychological disorders than the general public, and how those risk
factors can negatively affect children.
Part 2 of this interview will appear Friday.
Q: What is the growth trend of children being adopted by same-sex
couples or individuals with same-sex attractions?
O'Leary: I do not have any research showing this, but the anecdotal
evidence suggests a dramatic increase in such adoptions.
Recently, I spoke with a woman who has adopted a number of special needs
children and is extremely active in the adoption movement. She said that
she has observed a dramatic increase in adoptions by same-sex couples.
She believes that the social workers in the adoption field are
disproportionately homosexual themselves or are extremely sympathetic to
homosexual adoptions and are directing children to same-sex couples,
when there are married heterosexual couples available. She is extremely
concerned about this trend.
I asked how could so many same-sex couples qualify, given the evidence
that persons with same-sex attractions are far more likely to suffer
from psychological and other problems than married heterosexual couples.
She replied that it appeared to her that many of the same-sex couples
who adopted had psychological and other problems that would have
disqualified a married man and woman from adoption.
This, of course, is only anecdotal evidence, but well-designed studies
that compare persons with same-sex attractions with the general public
have found that persons with same-sex attractions are far more likely to
suffer from psychological disorders.
A same-sex couple has, by definition, two persons at high risk for
psychological disorders. The studies published in the Archives of
General Psychiatry found that persons self-identified as homosexual in
comparison to the general public had almost double the rate of suicidal
ideation or attempts, substance abuse problems and psychological
disorders. One of the studies found that 78.6% of the gay, lesbian or
bisexual group suffered from multiple disorders.
And there are other problems: Domestic violence is more common among
same-sex couples. Men with same-sex attractions are more likely to
become infected with a STD, including HIV, hepatitis or HPV, which can
lead to cancer. Thus, several studies suggest that 50% of men who have
sex with men will become HIV positive before age 50.
Any of these problems would negatively affect an adopted child. When
dealing with married heterosexual couples, agencies have been extremely
strict in ruling out couples with risk factors, yet seem to be ignoring
real risk when evaluating same-sex couples who want to adopt.
Consider the consequences of giving a special needs child or a child
with an attachment disorder
something that is very common among children adopted from orphanages
overseas
to a couple where one or both suffer from a psychological disorder or
substance abuse problem.
There should be an investigation into whether social workers are giving
vulnerable children to same-sex couples who would not otherwise be
qualified and the long-term consequences of these adoptions.
Q: Would children linger unloved in foster care if not placed with a
same-sex couple?
O'Leary: Given the increase in infertility due to late marriage and the
consequences of the pandemic of STDs, the number of securely married
couples who want to adopt is very high. Due to abortion and the
acceptance of single motherhood, the number of healthy babies being
released for adoption is very low.
Therefore, since the demand overwhelming exceeds the supply, agencies
should have no problems finding a virtually perfect placement for every
healthy baby released at birth by the mother.
There is no reason for choosing a second-best placement, and adoption by
a same-sex couple is by definition second-best, since it deprives the
child of a parent of one sex and all the experiences that having a
father and a mother provides.
Because there are so few healthy newborns available for adoption, the
number of securely married couples who will consider a baby with some
health problems or an older child has also increased dramatically.
Most children in foster care have not been adopted because their
biological parents have refused to release them for adoption or because
the courts have not terminated parental custody. These parents and their
children cling to hope that the situations that lead to them being
placed in foster care will change and the family reunited.
Reform in the foster care system is certainly called for, but placing
already deeply wounded children with same-sex couples is not the
solution.
Because of the shortage of babies and available older children, many
couples choose foreign adoption. Persons with same-sex attractions often
do not inform the country from which the child comes that they are
homosexual.
Recently an article in the Boston Globe reported on a lesbian couple
that wasn't going to get "married" because then they would have to
disclose this to the adoption agency and would not be able to obtain a
second child from overseas.
They had already deceived the overseas agency in order to obtain their
first child. Such deceptions will negatively affect married heterosexual
couples seeking to adopt abroad.
Q: What does a child typically experience when adopted by a heterosexual
couple?
O'Leary: While the public likes to romanticize adoption, the fact is
that being surrendered for adoption by one's biological parents is a
wounding experience.
Pretending that adoption is just like having your own biological child
and that there are no additional problems to overcome does a disservice
to the adoptive child's struggle to understand and to the adoptive
parents' heroic love.
Adoptive parents tell their children how their brave mothers made the
courageous decision to give their babies good homes with a mommy and
daddy and all the advantages that brings.
However, in spite of the reassurances from the adoptive parents and all
their love and care, an adopted child almost always asks: "Why? Why did
my mother give me up? Where was my father?"
These questions often persist well into adulthood. It takes emotional
and psychological stability in the part of the adoptive parents to allow
children to ask these questions.
Adoption by a happily, faithfully married husband and wife provides a
healing environment for the child who has been surrendered by his or her
biological parents. The faithful committed love of the father for his
wife and children teaches the adoptive child that all men do not walk
away from their responsibilities to their children.
The strength under pressure of the adoptive mother teaches the child
that even though his or her biological mother may not have thought she
had the resources to bring up a child, the adoptive mother is strong
enough to face any crisis and never stop loving or surrender a beloved
child.
The day-to-day experience of seeing a loving married father and mother
sacrifice and persevere gives the adopted child an image of true marital
and parental love that can serve as a model for his or her own life.
This is undoubtedly why, in spite of the initial wound, the majority of
adopted children grow into healthy and happy adults who marry wisely and
become good parents. ZE04110424
Part 2 Dale O'Leary on
the Stress for Kids
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, 5 NOV. 2004 (ZENIT) Adopted children of
same-sex parents face the deprivation of either a mother or father and
the strain of living in an unstable and unnatural situation, according
to a researcher in the field.
Dale O'Leary, a writer and researcher for the Catholic Medical
Association, shared with ZENIT how same-sex parents give their children
a second-class upbringing by exacerbating normal problems that adopted
kids experience.
Part 1 of this interview appeared Thursday.
Q: What's the difference between a child being adopted by a same-sex
couple and by a heterosexual couple?
O'Leary: If children adopted by married couples ask, "Why was I given up
for adoption?" what will the children who are given to same-sex couples
ask? Will they not wonder why their mother would give them over to a
permanently and purposefully mother-less or father-less family? And how
does adoption by a same-sex couplewhich
gay activists admit can expose the child to social stressprotect
a child from the stigma of being raised by a single mother?
Sooner or later the child will ask, "Why was I deserted by my father,
given up by my mother and then treated by society as a second-class baby
who could be placed in a second-class situation?"
Persons with same-sex attractions who adopt love their children, and the
children love their adoptive parents, but because there is love there
will also be denial. The same-sex couples will not be able to admit to
themselves the harm they have done to the children they love, and so
will blame "society" or "homophobia" for the problems they face. The
children will not be able to voice their dissatisfaction and will at the
same time feel guilty for not being grateful. The children will be made
to feel that there is something wrong with their natural desire for a
parent of opposite sexes.
We have already seen an example of this. Rosie O'Donnell, a very public
lesbian and advocate for lesbian adoption, was asked what she would do
if her adopted son wanted a father. According to O'Donnell, her son had
already expressed that desire. When he was 6, he said, "I want to have a
daddy."
O'Donnell replied, "If you were to have a daddy, you wouldn't have me as
a mommy because I'm the kind of mommy who wants another mommy. This is
the way mommy got born." He said, "OK, I'll just keep you."
While O'Donnell undoubtedly sees this as a positive affirmation of
same-sex adoption, there is another interpretation: She made her son
feel that his natural desire for a father is a rejection of her. That is
a terrible burden to place on a little boy.
And it gets worse. In the same interview, O'Donnell recounted how she
explained adoption to her son: "... he understands that there are
different types of people; that he grew up in another lady's tummy, and
that God looked inside and saw there was a mix-up and that God brought
him to me."
In other words, in light of this and the previous conversation between
O'Donnell and her son, it is wrong for him to want a daddy because God
decided that he shouldn't have one.
Q: What other dangers threaten children who are adopted by same-sex
couples?
O'Leary: Children surrendered for adoption have been separated from
their biological mothers and often from transitional caregivers. This
can lead to attachment disorders. Attachment to a single maternal figure
during the first eight months of life is crucial to emotional
development. Raising a child with an attachment disorder requires
special sensitivity on the part of his or her adoptive parents.
A friend who adopted a child from Eastern Europe discovered that her
adopted son had a severe attachment disorder. The specialist told her
that his ability to trust was so damaged that she should not leave him
for any extended period for several years.
Because children surrendered for adoption have already suffered one
major loss, it is very important that they be placed in the most stable
situation possible. Same-sex couples are the least stable arrangement.
Gay male couples are very likely to break up; even if they remain
together, they are rarely sexually faithful to one another. Lesbian
couples are more likely to remain together than gay male couples, but
they are not nearly as stable as married heterosexual couples.
Because of this, a child placed with a same-sex couple is at greater
risk for a second major loss during childhood. The research on the
effects of divorce on children is clear and unequivocal-divorce is
profoundly damaging. The damage is necessarily greater for the adoptive
child.
Michael Reaganwho
was adopted by President Ronald Reagan and his first wife, who later
divorcedspeaks
of divorce as two adults going into a child's room, breaking everything
of value and then leaving the child to try to put the pieces back
together. Michael Reagan in his vulnerability became the victim of a
pedophile who took pornographic pictures of him and then used them to
blackmail him into silence.
While the press presents a happy picture of same-sex couples adopting
babies, there is a different side of the picture: nasty breakups and
custody fights.
An article by Barbara Eisold entitled "Recreating Mother" in the
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry reports on the effects of a
mother-less family on one little boy. This boy was conceived for a male
couple using a surrogate mother who was paid for her service.
His father, the older member of the couple, hired a nanny to care for
the boy. When she became too emotionally involved she was fired; another
nanny was hired and then a third. The boy was then sent to nursery
school. By the time he was 4 he was suffering from profound
psychological problems and a therapist was hired to treat him.
One of his problems was that he wanted to "buy" a mother. The therapist
asks "How do we explain why this child, the son of a male couple, seemed
to need to construct a woman-'Mother'-with whom he could play the role
of loving boy/man? How did such an idea enter his mind? What inspired
his intensity on the subject?"
The therapist was hired to convince this little boy that what was done
to him was OK and that he must accept it. But the therapist missed the
obvious: Children need mothers. This child was artificially deprived of
what he needed.
A recent article in the New York Times Magazine on Ry and Cadesisters
now 22 and 24 years old who were born to a female coupleappears
designed to present a positive picture of how having two moms is a "big,
messy, incredible experiment" that "worked." However, the lengthy
article reveals the many ways in which the experiment has not worked.
Their two "mothers" did not provide the girls with clear models of
femininity or masculinity. According to the article, "Ry remembers Cade
pouring over Seventeen magazine as if it contained a code she needed to
crack." Cade apparently didn't find what she was looking for, and at age
18 came out as a lesbian.
One gathers from the article that Ry's "mothers" were part of an active
radical feminist community that held extremely negative views about
marriage, and those views affected their daughters.
At one point, Ry was "repulsed" by heterosexual relations and afraid of
the "sexist soul-losing domain of oppression" she associated with
male-female relationships. At 16 she wrote, "I cannot understand or
relate to men because I am so immersed in gay culture and unfamiliar
with what it is to have a straight relationship." Ry's mothers
encouraged her to have sex with her boyfriend, which she did, but at the
same time she felt conflicted about having "sex with a man, which meant
'growing up and away from my mothers.'" Since then she has become more
confident with men, but still feels as though she is "passing" for
straight.
The experiment has clearly placed a burden on the girls. According to
the article, "For most of her life, Ry has been both parent and child to
her mothers." If this is supposed to be a success story, one can only
imagine what the failures are like.
The adoption controversy is growing as courts and agencies favor
same-sex couples over heterosexual couples. Social workers and foster
parents who protest are sometimes punished.
Laurie Ellinger, a foster mother who protested the adoption of a black
little boy by a white gay male couple, was temporarily suspended from
sheltering foster children because she made the case public. Two married
Christian couples had tried to adopt the boy, but the baby's natural
father protested to the social workers, who had control over the
adoption.
Q: How will same-sex couples adopting children affect society?
O'Leary: Our first concern should be the welfare of the children turned
over to same-sex couples, but this policy also negatively affects our
families. By sanctioning adoption by same-sex couples, the government is
sanctioning homosexual behavior. It is one thing for the state to
tolerate what goes on behind closed doors and quite another to say that
it is equal to marriage.
How will the schools, particularly the elementary schools, handle this
problem? The question is not theoretical. Schools in Massachusetts and
other areas are already teaching elementary school children to accept
same-sex relationships as equal to marriage between a man and woman.
This puts religious parents in an untenable position. They have a duty
to teach their children the truth, namely that homosexual behavior is
always and will always be contrary to God's plan. On the other hand,
they do not want to go into the details of homosexuality with a
kindergartner. Nor do they want to subject children being raised by
same-sex couples to additional pain.
The only answer for many parents is to withdraw their children from
public education. When public schools are used as instruments of
indoctrination against religion, religious parents are discriminated
against. ZE04110522
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