The following blog was written for Mombian by LGBT
blogger/writer Dana Rudolph
blogger/writer Dana Rudolph
I’ve written a lot about adoption lately—some great new
resources have just come out, including a
book looking at recent research on adoption by lesbians and gay
men, edited by David Brodzinsky and Adam Pertman of the Evan B.
Donaldson Adoption Institute, and a major new 69-page report
on best practices in adoption by lesbians and gay men, from
the same organization.
To my mind, the key takeaways from all of the above material are
these:
- Over 65,500 adoptive children and 14,000 foster children are
already being raised by gay or lesbian parents in the U.S. - All of the legitimate, peer-reviewed, academic studies that
have been done show that children being raised by lesbian or gay
parents are as well-adjusted as any others. These findings are
supported by major professional organizations, including the
American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics,
and the Child Welfare League of America. - Finally—do the math: Over 115,000 children are still waiting
for adoptive homes, whileover
two million LGB people are interested in adopting. (Presumably,
many transgender people are also interested in adopting, too, but
there has been less research on them.)