I'm personally uncomfortable with gay couples adopting, for the basic reasons that many here state; namely, the most stable and nurturing environment for a child to grow up in is a two-parent, male and female household.
I'm Canadian (I know, I know, pathetic socialists all), and maybe gay activism isn't as rabid up here as it is in the States but this issue isn't as nearly as high on the radar screen up here. Then again, most folks I know take the old attitude that says "if you keep it at home and out of my face and no one's getting hurt it's none of my business."
I was adopted as an infant so I've personally given this and other issues like it to do with unwanted kids/abortion on demand, etc a fair bit of workover in my mind.
I have what many might think a fair number of gay acquaintances (almost all men), including the two guys who were "married" last year, and to a one they consider this issue a non-starter as none of them have ever had the urge to be parents. Now granted, I don't hang out with a lot of leftists, so this may skew my sample somewhat. These guys are as uncomfortable with in-your-face gay activism as much as any straight people I know. They just want to be left to go about their lives and make a decent living and treat others as they themselves are treated. BTW, the constant carping about all gays being pedophiles and rabid perverts is wearisome. Yes, there are gay pedophiles, but there are a lot of non-gay ones as well (I refuse to call them "straight.") They are perverts in the standard definition. People that make this sweeping claim probably don't know many if any gays personally, IMHO.
Okay, now for the story.
A couple of years ago in Toronto there was a lesbian couple who had been in a committed relationship for the better part of a decade. One of the women had a daughter from a previous marriage...I believe she was 12 or 13 at the time. The daughter had been raised in the household with Mom and her partner from when she was an infant.
The mother developed HIV/Aids from tainted blood. We had a massive blood scandal up here where the Red Cross provided poisoned blood in the 1980's and thousands of hemophiliacs and surgery patients were infected without their knowledge. The Red Cross wasn't testing for whatever was in the blood at the time. (oh, and get this...the buzz was that the blood originated from Arkansas prison inmates but before anything could get to court the records mysteriously vanished - and guess who the governor of Arkansas was at the time!)
So, Mom is in her last months of life and the partner wanted to legally adopt the girl as her own. If I recall correctly the dying woman had no other family and the daughter wanted to remain in the home with her mother's partner. Now in Ontario law, there's nothing explicit against a gay person adopting, the rule applied is "best interests of the child." There was, however, restrictions against an openly gay couple adopting as a 2-parent adoption must be between a husband and wife. There was a huge kerfluffle over this situation as the law seemed iron clad. Basically the girl would have ended up a ward of the Childrens Aid Society and been shuffled off to foster homes. Ugly.
The mother desperately wanted this resolved before she died. She, and the girl, were horrified of the possibility of having to move into foster care, and this was at a time of some very high-profile abuse cases traced back to incompetent work by the Childrens Aid Society. If I recall correctly, and anyone with more knowledge of this case is free to correct me, they had to wait until the mother died before they could initiate the adoption procedings, but she was given quiet assurances that the Crown lawyers would put up only a token resistance. In the end, the girl stayed where she and her mother wanted her to be, with the partner, and the case was never heard from again. In fact, it's the last case like this to surface that I can remember.
Okay, that's the yarn. Any comments or alternate perspectives are welcome. I tell this story not to take a pro-gay adoption stance (I'm not there) but to illustrate how this really isn't a cut and dry issue in all cases. If ALL gay adoption is prohibited, what happens in case like this? I thank my parents constantly for adopting me and giving me a wonderful upbringing. I shudder to think what my life would have turned out like if I'd been raised in foster homes with strangers and no sense of a real "home." IMHO, the girl was the real winner in this case.
Thanks and good day all.