I haven’t written a whole lot about McCain this election season, largely because I’m trying to stay above the stupid shrill meaningless differences between the candidates that seems to dominate the news. But on some things, it’s worth jumping in.
Now, McCain has slowly been slipping into panderville trying to appeal to the religious right, and this latest bit is just horrible. Here’s the quote:
I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.
I’m guessing that what McCain is talking about here is child well-being in different family structures. I.e. some studies have shown that kids from married happy households tend to be better off.
Here’s the one most people talk about (PDF Link).
The take away of this study is this: married biological parents with low levels of conflict tend to make for well adjusted kids.
Okay, that’s great. So by McCain’s sweeping logic, we shouldn’t allow for adoption of any sort, because oh yeah, by definition adoption means at least one of the biological parents is no longer involved. But this logic clearly hits single adoptive parents of any sort, gay or straight.
So what he should really be referencing is the impact on child development of gay/straight single parent households and the same for couples.
As far as I can tell, no such study currently exists. So he’s really just talking out of his ass.
If you’re going to pander to the right, just be honest and say that you don’t support Gay adoption because it makes the baby Jesus cry.
And BTW: other studies have actually shown children of single fathers did as well or better than children with two biological parents. Whoops.