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Too High a Price
The Case Against Restricting
Gay Parenting v.2
by Leslie Cooper and Paul Cates,
ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project
Introduction by Shay Bilchik, president and CEO, Child Welfare League of America
© 2006, American Civil Liberties Union
Introduction to the ACLU article by Demian, June 19, 2006
In some states, gay men and lesbians are barred from being parents. They are legally prevented from adoption or foster care, aren’t legally recognized as parents of children they raise, or are denied custody of their own kids.
“An urgent need exists to try to bridge this gap between the number of children needing families and the number of families willing to love and care for these vulnerable children. That’s why there is widespread agreement throughout the child welfare profession that every individual or couple interested in adopting or fostering should be considered. We simply cannot afford to systematically exclude any group of caring and loving people from an already limited pool of prospective parents. Laws and policies that ban lesbians and gay men from adopting and fostering fly in the face of well-developed child welfare policy and standards by depriving children of willing and able parents.”
“It has now been established by the research that gay people are just as capable of being good parents as heterosexual or ‘straight’ people, and that their children are just as likely to be healthy and well-adjusted. Not a single reputable study has found that children raised by gay or lesbian parents have been harmed because of their parents’ sexual orientation in any way.”
— Shay Bilchik, president and CEO, Child Welfare League of America,
from her introduction
This article, from the ACLU makes the comprehensive case against restricting gay parenting by providing summaries of scientific studies of gay-parented households, and makes a point-by-point refutation of the arguments for keeping gay people from being parents.
Click here for the PDF article:
Too High a Price: The Case Against Restricting Gay Parenting v.2
An earlier version of this article — with an introduction by Rosie O’Donnell — is also available:
Too High a Price: The Case Against Restricting Gay Parenting v.1
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