The desire to become a parent and raise a child is perhaps as prevalent among lesbian and gay men as it is among heterosexuals. The reasons for wanting a child are also just as complex. Some believe that having a child ensures their immortality; others wish to gratify their parents" insistence on grandchildren; still others feel the basic human urge to parent and nurture. For many lesbian women and gay men, however, the only undesired consequence of their sexual orientation is the inability to have a child with the person they love. One solution to this problem has been adoption. However, the jurisdictions granting homosexual adoptions have been few and far between. This in part, has been due to the law's reluctance to keep pace with and face the realities of evolving social patterns in which gay and lesbians live together as life partners and subsequently choose to raise a family in the same manner as heterosexuals. These relationships are not, however, viewed by the law as constituting the "traditional" family.
This lag may stem from the feeling, by many of those in opposition to "alternative" families, that the "traditional nuclear" family forms the bedrock of society. Some people believe that the nuclear family is the only domestic relation unit or that it alone is the only uniquely situated to transmit society's most important values, while new types of loving relationships are seen as a threat to the very order of things. The problem with this objection is that it ignores the negative attributes of nuclear families and the positive characteristics of alternative families. "Close scrutiny of same-sex couples by the courts, however, would reveal that these alternative family arrangements preserve traditional family qualities, values, stability, commitment, affection and support, as well."(Bartlett, 287) When a household becomes the functional equivalent of a family, the law should not treat it any differently than the "traditional" family (288).
