Study of the Week: Banning Gay Adoption Hurts Children

by Michael Jones · 2008-11-02 16:40:00 UTC
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gay adoptionHow timely is this piece of news, given the fact that Arkansas voters will rule on Tuesday whether gay couples in the state can still have the right to adopt and provide foster care for children.

A study out by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute highlights a number of critical points when it comes to the subject of LGBT adoption.  The findings?  Here we go:

  • LGBT foster parents are critical nationwide in getting children into the foster care system before they age out.  By not allowing LGBT people to serve as foster parents, a large demographic of foster parents are taken off the table, and children are forced to wait for foster homes;

  • Children who age out of the foster care system are more likely to face poverty, homelessness, incarceration and early parenthood;

  • Gay and lesbian couples adopt at a higher frequency than heterosexual couples.  Same-sex couples are 1.7 percent more likely to adopt than heterosexual couples.

Together, those stats speak volumes to me about the implications of banning LGBT adoption.  Banning it certainly punishes gay and lesbian couples.  But the real story here is how it hurts children.  Arkansas, vote accordingly.

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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