LGBT Parents are Not a Threat to their Adopted Children

The radical right in this country certainly does like to scapegoat LGBT parents whenever some sort of controversy comes up.  Case in point, a story out of Durham, North Carolina where a very, very troubled individual, Frank Lombard, was arrested for inviting another man to travel to North Carolina in order to molest his adopted 5-year-old son.  Change.org's excellent Human Trafficking blogger, Amanda Kloer, has more on the case here.

The right-wing in this country, led by Christian News Wire and the Grassroots Network of the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV Network), are seeking to take this case and use it as a means of bashing gay adoption.  Because, you see, the parent in question happened to be gay.  Already, here's what folks with those two groups have had to say about the Lombard case:

RPV Network: The question remains whether this pattern of child sexual abuse and male homosexuals will be seen as a validation of some studies which suggest that homosexual men are more than 40 times more likely than the general population to molest.

Christian News Wire: (With the headline, no less, of: "Lombard Demonstrates Why Gays Should Not be Allowed to Adopt") The on-line rape of his 5-year-old adopted son by Duke University's openly-gay, Frank Lombard, is no anomaly. Instead, Lombard's molestation fits the pattern that emerged in the latest review of the...literature about gay fathers.

It's downright disgusting that these right-wing organizations are seeking to turn this tragic case into a referendum on LGBT adoption.  Leave it to the right-wing in this country to turn exploitation into...well, more exploitation.

Frank Lombard's case is tragic.  His actions are disgusting (if they are true), as very few things are more repugnant than child molestation and human trafficking.  But this is not a case about gay adoption.  This is a case about a disturbed man failing on every level as a parent.

To make this a case about LGBT adoption, like Christian News Wire and the social networking site of the Republican Party of Virginia are doing, is a grotesque move of political theater. It would be like saying, "Because Governor Mark Sanford cheated on his wife, conservative Christians shouldn't be allowed to get married."  (Or travel to Argentina...or whatever absurd comment you want to put here.)

Every mainstream scientific study out there asserts that LGBT people are extremely well qualified to be parents, and every mainstream study demonstrates that children who grow up in LGBT homes are just as balanced as children who grow up in straight homes.

That's important to remember, especially as radical conservative groups in this country seek to spin the Lombard case into a debate over gay adoption.

(Photo courtesy of (addict2pics)'s photostream on Flickr!)