Bankrupt California buys ads for 'gay' adoptions

SACRAMENTO – Facing a $42 billion deficit and a state debt that grows by $28,000 every minute, California has managed to find enough room in its budget to sponsor an elaborate statewide campaign to promote homosexual adoption.

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation has partnered with the California Department of Social Services and the Los Angeles County to promote a "Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Family" campaign that invites homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals to adopt children.

According to a Campaign for Children and Families report, the state has sponsored two billboards promoting "gay" adoption in West Hollywood and Alameda County.

In April 2007, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed John Wagner as director of the Department of Social Services. Wagner is openly "gay" and is an advisory member of the Human Rights Campaign.

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, a California pro-family organization, released a statement saying the state has no business sponsoring the campaign when it has decided to issue taxpayers IOUs in place of their annual returns.

"At a time when the state doesn't have enough money to provide hard-working people with their tax refunds, it's a shame that state and county funds are being wasted on this propaganda," he said.

Proponents claim sexual orientation shouldn't be an issue because thousands of kids need loving homes.

"They provide loving, stable and permanent homes for kids who need them," Robyn Harrod, spokeswoman for Southern California Adoption Agency, told Los Angeles' ABC 7 News. "And, it makes absolutely no difference whether they are gay, straight, single, married ... They just need to love kids and want to provide a home for them."

According to its website, the HRC "Family Project's All Children – All Families" initiative works "to ensure that all qualified prospective parents who wish to open their homes and hearts to children and youth have the opportunity to do so, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity."

While the campaign claims to be acting in the interest of more than 100,000 U.S. children waiting to be adopted by loving families, none of its promotional images feature heterosexual parents. It lists adoption agencies in 15 states that are currently participating in the initiative and are "committed to implementing policies and practices that welcome, affirm and support LGBT foster and adoptive parents."

Former Gov. Gray Davis quietly dropped a California policy opposing "gay" adoption in 1999. In 2001, the state Legislature passed AB 25, allowing a homosexual person to adopt a partner's child using the stepparent adoption process. The California Supreme Court affirmed "second-parent adoptions" in 2003.

Approximately 65,000 adopted children are currently being raised by same-sex couples in the U.S., according to a March 2007 report by the Urban Institute and the Williams Institute at UCLA.

The Campaign for Children and Families cited a 2001 University of Southern California "study of studies" on raising children in same-sex families titled, "(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?" The campaign includes the following discoveries by sociology professors Judith Stacey and Timothy Blibarz on its website:

A significantly greater proportion of young adult children raised by lesbian mothers than those raised by heterosexual mothers say they have experienced sexual intimacy with a partner of the same sex. They were not, however, statistically more likely to identify themselves as gay or lesbian.

Young girls raised by lesbians are more likely to be sexually adventurous and active than their counterparts raised by heterosexual parents. However the sons of lesbians exhibit "an opposite pattern" and are likely to be less adventurous and active than boys raised by heterosexual households.

Lesbian mothers reported that their children behave in ways that do not conform to "sex-typed cultural norms." And the sons of lesbians are reportedly less likely to behave in traditionally masculine ways than those raised by heterosexual couples.

Thomasson said children are more likely to experience healthy childhoods when they are raised by loving heterosexual parents.

"God created fathers and mothers so that children could have the best chance at life," he said. "Studies show that children raised in homosexual and transsexual households are highly likely to experience sexual confusion and to act out homosexually, bisexually and transsexually when they otherwise would not."

Thomasson continued, "When the facts confirm that children do best with a married father and mother, there is no reason other than selfishness for anyone to advocate placing vulnerable children into these sexually confused and sexually charged environments."