However, adoption is the most popular way of having children.
According to the World Wide Web site for the American Civil Liberties Union, the total number of children nationwide living with at least one gay parent ranges from six to fourteen million (screen 1). Furthermore, according to overlooked opinions, the majority of lesbians and gay men are in stable committed relationships (qtd. in ALCU Fact Sheet). They love each other and they need children to take care of. ACLU states that when the same sex couples decide for adoption, they have to get through a long and rigorous adoption process. This process includes extensive home visits and interviews of prospective parents. No homosexual couple is allowed to adopt if they do not qualify for adoption (screen 5). .
Moreover, people have to realize a dramatic fact that America faces. ACLU announced that the United States was experiencing a critical shortage of adoptive and foster parents. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children in this country are without permanent homes (screen 2). Moreover, in Arkansas, for example, the foster care system does such a poor job of caring for children that it has been placed under supervision (ALCU Fact Sheet, screen 1). Petit and Curtis say that there are 500,000 children in foster care nationally, and 100,000 need to be adopted. But last year there were qualified adoptive parents available for only 20,000 of those children (qtd. in ALCU Fact Sheet). It is reasonable that children without homes do not have the option of choosing between married mother and father or some type of parent. These children have neither a mother nor a father married or unmarried. If children who are not adopted cannot choose the parents, who is to say that other people should? .
The states are as divided on same-sex adoption as the citizens of our country seem to be. When the 1997 Florida law prohibited gays and lesbians from adopting, Michael Adams, a staff attorney for the ACLU's national Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, said, "This is a disappointing decision that fails to take to heart the best interest of children.
