While the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges ostensibly made discrimination against queer Americans illegal, the lived experience of these citizens has been far more complex. One area wherein the US has continually failed to uphold the promises of Obergefell is adoption.
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Queer couples demonstrate disproportionate interest in the practice compared to their heterosexual counterparts. In fact, 32% of queer couples have seriously considered adoption in comparison to 17% of straight couples. Today, queer folks do adopt more than others, but some researchers argue that they are still underrepresented relative to their desires to adopt. The reasons behind this continued disparity are anything but incidental, ultimately reflecting a variety of biases within our collective conception of the American family.
One of the more obvious barriers to adoption is discriminatory state laws. While Obergefell v. Hodges did make anti-queer discrimination illegal under the 14th amendment, many states still allow private companies to refuse certain services to queer folks on the basis of religious preference. The result is individual adoption agencies often refusing to work with queer couples, even if they are otherwise perfectly fit to adopt a child. Specifically 13 states have laws that allow this sort of back door discrimination, with 30% of queer Americans living in one of these states.
While not every agency is so discriminatory, and not ever queer American lives in a state where such behavior is legal, the nuances of state laws nonetheless add complexity to an already confusing adoption system. Pair this with the tremendous financial burden of adoption, and it’s easy to see why many otherwise motivated couples might give up their pursuit of an adopted child.
Even for those individual who aren’t subject to discrimination under the law, fear of ostracization still looms large. 35% of Queer Americans report fear of discrimination as a major barrier to adopting a child. Many queer couples have to live knowing that their adoption of a child would mean the creation of an unconventional family, the sort of family many in their community might resent or even attack.
To make a more overt connection to our class discussions of late, I’d argue that the discrimination queer folks face ultimately reflects the constrained idea of family that many feminist thinkers have so sharply criticized. To think that two men, two women, or an otherwise queer couple, couldn’t properly raise a child is to insinuate that women have a fixed childbearing duty which could never be fulfilled by any other person.
While I am no authority on what constitutes an ideal environment for a child to be raised, I feel quite confident claiming that growing up with parental figures is generally preferable to growing up in an orphanage. Yet, a confluence of individual biases and discriminatory state laws still limits so many eager and capable couples from adopting children.
I likely can’t change anyone’s personal beliefs about queer Americans with a single blog post, but I would leave our readers with some food for thought on this matter. Regardless of your personal feelings surrounding queer marriage, a vast body of research indicates that children raised by same sex couples end up just as happy and healthy as those raised by opposite sex couples. For those who remain skeptical of queer adoption, I must ask: Is adoption not supposed to place children in homes where they end up happy and healthy?