Of course Now What? mostly deals with issues related to young people but I like to think of it as also having to do with shifts in society and “Now What?” could also refer to what’s next for this big, great, all-over-the-map country of ours. And no where are we less certain (or more divided) than on the topic of gay marriage and gay parents being able to adopt.
Well, just this week there was a study done that may help settle some of the rhetoric over whether gay parents are “fit” parents and if kids are really better off with a father in prison than being raised by two lesbian parents (as GOP candidate and professional ass clown Rick Santorum alleged). And the results didn’t surprise me but might surprise some: gay parents were better parents.
Now before anyone goes off half-cocked that being gay makes you a better parent, the study didn’t say that. What it said instead was that if someone is gay, it’s obviously a lot harder for them to be parents, that that difficulty comes with a built-in screening process, and they have to make a choice whether they really want to be parents or not. A staggering, under-reported statistic is that 50 percent of straight parents are accidental parents, while, obviously, no gay parents are accidental parents. If you’re gay and want to be a parent, you will have to wait years for an adoption or surrogate mom or some other method, letting there be little doubt that you really want to be a parent. So right off the bat it’s a much different experience than trailer park Bubba knocking up a Waffle House waitress who refuses to get on the pill.
“So maybe what the study really revealed is that too many unprepared parents are having kids?” I can almost hear homophobes asking through the screen and I won’t argue that. I mean who among us has never seen an unfit mom or deadbeat dad? Still, when you consider the rigorous, long process gay parents have to go through for kids, you’re actually taking away the “unprepared” part of the equation.
Regardless of where you stand on the issue, the science is in and common sense has always been there to back it up. When someone has to go through two years of screening processes, paperwork, and regulations to become a parent, that actually gives them time to MAKE such a life-altering decision. I think anyone can see where maybe that has benefits over two minutes of pump and dump in a K-Mart parking lot before a teenager’s curfew expires.