Joy Behar Smacks Ukraine Over Gay Adoption

by Michael Jones · 2009-09-23 14:57:00 UTC
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Joy Behar

When Elton John announced that he and his partner wanted to adopt a 14-month-old HIV positive orphan named Lev from Ukraine, the world-renowned pop star was told by the country that he was (1) too gay, and (2) too old to adopt a baby. If that seems pretty effed up, it's because it is. And Joy Behar isn't going to let it slide by the international news circuit without taking her own gloves off.

Behar, co-host of The View and about to launch her own news-like TV show on a CNN affiliate, has a piece just utterly blasting the Ukranian government for not acting in the best interest of children. It's one of the best riffs out there on gay adoption bans, especially on the international scene. Behar's message for the Ukranian government? Children belong in homes, not in shoddy orphanages.

"Family doesn't mean a huddle of orphans sharing a few soiled mattresses," Behar writes. "it's not youth if you die of AIDS before you reach kindergarten, and wrestling over dinner scraps is not a sport."

Family means love and support, and two LGBT parents are equally as qualified to provide that as two straight parents. And that's just not coming from some liberal blogger or TV show host; it comes from the American Psychological Association, the National Adoption Center and the American Academy of Pediatrics -- to name a few of the professional organizations that support LGBT adoption.

As Behar writes, it's not LGBT adoption that hurts kids. It's growing up with no parents, because the Ukranian government (and let's not forget that Arkansas government) are too damn homophobic to put the best interests of a child ahead of their own bigoted, 14th century views.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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