Todd says adoption "needs to be about the children ... not about the parents." That's bull-*bleep*, of course, as Todd must admit because adoption is about the parents. That's why every state agency and every church adoption agency screens parents carefully. As Todd himself says, "One is found fit by one's psychological make-up, maturity, ability to raise children and provide for them, and other particular factors that match a child's needs." Todd just doesn't think that morality should enter into a couple's fitness. The Church disagrees.
So I went to Todd's blog and read the entry. He states:
As a Catholic, I also believe the needs of children must be prioritized. The advocacy of straight couples waiting while thirteen children are placed with gays badly misses the boat. Parenting is not a right. Let me repeat: nobody has a right to be a parent. Parenting is a duty. Children without parents are cared for by various persons and organizations. As children are placed for adoption, the duty is passed from one entity to a permanent one. Those doing the placement have a moral duty to ensure the children have received the best possible placement for their lives.
What a sensible statement. This is one of the few times I sit squarely in Todd's court (you can ask him :)). As an adoptee, I bring an adoptee's perspective to this discussion. It's part of who I am. I don't think about it much, but when I'm looking into adoption, I am looking very carefully into what is the absolute best for the child in question. As he or she is, so I once was. As I am now, so I want him or her to be.
To address Bill's statement, no, it isn't about the parents. Parents are screened carefully to insure that the best parents are found for the child. Many things are taken into consideration, and Todd, according to his missive, has been through this. When it becomes about the parents, instead of God's will, we get situations of lesbians artificially inseminating themselves, couples taking advantage of IVF, and abortion for eugenics purposes (such as picking the sex of the child, or eliminating a perceived handicap lie Down's syndrome, a harelip, hammer-toe or the wrong color hair). When it is about the child, they are all born, all helped, and each and every one of them is attempted to be placed in the very best situation possible.
There are two separate issues with regard to "The Bishops v. Boston Catholic Charities".
Obedience
The first is easy. It is a question of obedience (which I have found to be sorely lacking both in the rad-trad and cafeteria Catholic camps). Very simply put, if Boston Catholic Charities wishes to continue to be able to call themselves "Catholic" they need to behave like Catholics are supposed to and do what the Bishops say. Or they are welcome to form their own charity disassociated from the Catholic Church, get certified, and provide adoption services any way they see fit. Lest I be accused of inconsistency, I held the same view when the Baptist adoption agency refused to adopt to Catholics. The people placed their trust and their child in the hands of the agency, knowing their policy. Likewise if someone places their child in the hands of a Catholic charity, they should be able to be sure that their child will not be adopted out to people who are deemed unsatisfactory by the yardstick of the Catholic Church.
Well being of the child
This I believe is more important than posturing about the moral fibre of prospective adoptive parents. A gay couple is at a disadvantage, because not only are they living in unrepentent sin, they're living in scandal, and such is easily viewed from the outside.
Other parents may be committing much more heinous sins, but theirs are hidden, and need to be attempted to be displayed by the discernment process.
From the outset, let me say that in the comparison of a loving heterosexual couple and a loving homosexual couple, the heterosexual couple will always win. This means that if there is this beautiful, blonde blue-eyed infant waiting for adoption, and there are 10 couples standing in line for him or her and one of those couples is homosexual, odds are very good that the homosexual couple will lose.
If it's one somewhat homely Down's syndrome toddler, with a loving homosexual couple and a single working woman in line for the child, the homosexual couple may very well get the child.
What Bill seems to be proposing is that we refuse all homosexual adoptions, and just let these hard to place children rot in bad foster situations or orphanages, and I can abide this.
It's a question not only of the most good for the child, but the least evil, and in this world, I'm here to tell you, sexual sins are not always the top of the list for evil actions.
So I think Bill needs to re-think this. Anyone who knows me knows I am not pro-homosexual at all (which I think might give my opinion a little more weight). However, I am an adoptee. I'm a real person, not those numbers of children Bill was bantering around.
But even the supporters of gay adoptions acknowledge that there have been very few. It isn't like hundreds of kids are affected.
I'm sorry, Bill. One child who is left in an evil situation when there are loving people (even loving homosexual people) available is one too many. You are looking at a guy who might have been one of those people.
The only problem I have would be homosexual activists within the adoption agencies, trying to make a "point" by adopting our a child to a homosexual couple to the child's detriment. This is as bad as excluding homosexuals from the process specifically because they are homosexual.
