If heterosexual parents--like Britney and Kevin--were held to the same standard as gay and lesbian parents, imagine the crushing blow to the therapy business nationwide. Imagine if the same scrutiny paid to gay and lesbian couples looking to foster or adopt was paid to straight couples? You'd have an unprecedented epidemic of well-adjusted adults. It would be downright disgusting--a nation plagued by happy, family-oriented, nurturing human beings. What divorce lawyer would want to see that!!??

The news from the University of Amsterdam: Yet another study and more money and research time spent to prove that queer parents turn out children just as well-adjusted as do straight parents. The only difference the study found between lesbian couples and straight couples? Mothers are better at parenting than fathers; and two mothers are more committed parents than a mother and a father. Now there's a shocker. Of course, my mother was Medea...so there are exceptions. It's only through divine intervention that I'm still alive.

A review of parenting studies soon to be published by New York's Yeshiva University concludes that children with two supportive parents fare better than children with only one parent or none, but this same review also found that among children with only one supportive parent, it did not matter whether that parent is a mother or a father. In other words, what matters is that parents be supportive; sexual orientation and gender are mostly irrelevant.



How many studies have addressed this topic? I've lost count. The scientific community, social workers, clergy and politicians are convinced that we need more and more hard science to prove that openly gay parenting doesn't turn out twisted children. In the meantime our society pretty much allows junkies, alcoholics, religious fanatics, child abusers and sadists to enslave, beat, rape and mentally destroy their own children with little to no interference from the same government and social agencies that hound gay parents on a regular basis.

The statistics on child rape, incest, child neglect and child abuse in this nation are staggering, but in defense of the American family, federal, state and local authorities rarely intervene unless someone is murdered, found mutilated or badly bloodied and half-conscious. You can read one news story after another about how, despite endless warning signs, the police and neighbors refused to "get involved" and violate the sanctity of a family's privacy. But when a happily "unioned" same sex couple wants to adopt or foster, the clergy, the courts and the agencies go insane with fear and loathing.

ChildHelp, a leading national non-profit organization dedicated to helping victims of child abuse and neglect estimates that there about 9 million cases annually of child abuse and neglect within the context of the "traditional American family". Just under 3 million of these cases are actually reported and far fewer are addressed effectively by authorities. 1,500 children die annually at the hands of their biological parents, 79% of these children are under 4.

In the meantime the parenting issue that dominates legislative debates, clerical arguments and media headlines? Gay parenting. I'm not saying that gay parents are better than straight parents, but it is rather obvious that the debate over allowing gay parents to legally adopt and foster children is a grotesque waste of our resources and energies while other issues stand perversely unaddressed.

While I appreciate the value of scientifically valid research in a court of law, I'm beginning to find these studies to be truly insulting and a rather disgusting waste of resources when there are so many children suffering at the hands of their biological parents. Even nature teaches us that biology is not necessarily the answer to good parenting. Many species, for example, eat their own young. Fresh meat from a known source. Yummy.

Furthermore, no amount of science will influence the religious lunatics who currently hold sway over most state legislatures and most of Congress.

Science be damned. I say we start using some common sense, open our eyes and consider the nasty fate of too many of this nation's children at the hands of the so-called "traditional American family." The last thing we should be doing is questioning two productive adults in a committed relationship who want to build a loving and nurturing home for children.

Should queers be allowed to adopt? What a stupid question. Should biological families be put under more scrutiny by law and mental and community health experts? The statistics on abuse, abandonment and neglect demand it.

Some excellent related reading from today's issue of SOVO on gay foster children.