For years, Americans fighting for the right to life for unborn children have promoted adoption as the humane alternative to the wholesale slaughter of the innocent.
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Abortion, of course, greatly reduced the number of children available for adoption.
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Now a new study published in the American Sociological Review and written up breathlessly by the Associated Press, the largest news-gathering organization in the world, purports to demonstrate conclusively that adoptive parents are better than biological parents.
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Why the sudden interest in adoption now – a generation after legalized abortion so greatly reduced the number of babies available to adoptive parents?
It's quite clear from the lead paragraph of AP staff writer David Crary's opinion piece disguised as a news story: "Adoptive parents invest more time and financial resources in their children than biological parents, according to a new national study challenging arguments that have been used to oppose same-sex marriage and gay adoption." (Emphasis added.)
Actually, the study does no such thing.
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If reporter Crary read the 22-page report, he might have noticed the study notes on page 2: "Despite the increase in gay and lesbian couples and single parents who are adopting, the number of these families in most nationally representative datasets is still too small to support statistical analysis. Our analyses focus on married male-female couples who adopt."
Interesting that the reporter didn't see the study as a challenge to "evolutionary science" as did the authors of the report, who stated it on page 1: "These findings are inconsistent with the expectations of sociological family structure explanations, which highlight barriers to parental investment in nontraditional families, and evolutionary science's kin selection theory, which maintains that parents are genetically predisposed to invest in biological children."
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But my main point in focusing on the way this study has been reported is the one overriding question it raises: Is adoption good or bad?
Why is it bad when the debate is about abortion?
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And why is it good when the debate is about same-sex marriage?
Aren't the people who stridently support abortion generally speaking the same people who support same-sex marriage?
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Why is it that they speak out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to the issue of adoption?
That adoptive parents are generally good parents comes as no surprise to those of us who oppose abortion and same-sex marriage. It is not even shocking to learn that married, opposite-sex adoptive parents spend more time with their children than biological parents. In fact, I would have guessed as much.
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But how in the world would this finding in any way, shape or form challenge opposition to same-sex marriage and homosexual adoption?
Such a challenge could only be found in the mind of a social activist posing as a news reporter for the Associated Press – and presumably in the brains of his editors, as well.
This reporter doesn't just put words in the mouths of the authors of the report; he completely misrepresents what the study examined. For instance, he writes: "The researchers said gay and lesbian parents may react to discrimination by taking extra, compensatory steps to promote their children's welfare."
In fact, the researchers said no such thing – never even alluding to gay and lesbian parents in their report. It's unclear as to whether the reporter intentionally distorted the meaning and context of the report or simply didn't understand it.
The following quote from the report is used to support his point: "Ironically, the same social context that creates struggles for these alternative families may also set the stage for them to excel in some measures of parenting."
But, throughout the study, the term "alternative families" clearly refers to those who adopt, not to same-sex unions, which are, as previously shown, never examined or referenced by the authors.
Nevertheless, mark my words: This AP story was published in hundreds of newspapers, ripped and read by hundreds of radio and television newscasters, posted on hundreds of websites. This complete distortion of reality will be used as "evidence" that homosexual adoption is healthy.
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