Religion & Law

One reason for opposing adoption by same-sex couples is this: Virtually all of us agree that at most only a small minority of persons are genetically predisposed to homosexuality. Ten percent or less is commonly accepted. So the chances are overwhelming that any child placed with a same-sex couple is going to turn out to be a heterosexual in a family where the only sexual role models are homosexual. This extremely likely incongruity does not mean that every adoption by a same sex couple is worse than any possible adoption by a different-sex couple, but it is at least a negative factor, possibly a strong one. Of course, the homosexual child growing up with heterosexual parents may be in a similar plight, but this will happen far less often. (If a ?gay gene? or the like could be identified in an infant before adoptive placement, this objection would clearly disappear, for in that case each child could be matched with the appropriate sort of parents.)

If social science research can find no negative effects where kids grow up without congruent models for sexual relatedness, for themselves and for their potential partners, then I count that as clearly prejudiced social science research.