http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Alan_Rekers#Arkansas_gay_adoption_case.2C_2004

There is a current “controversy” over a section in the Virginia Department of Social Services regulations that prohibits discrimination against prospective parents on the basis of who they are, essentially affirming the “best interests of the child” standard, but nothing has been done to address the discrimination against couples. Thanks, Regan, for your insights.

http://www.equalityloudoun.org/?p=919

But an unmarried straight couple who remain that way for no reason, because obviously they legally COULD marry, begs the question, why don’t they?

This of course does not apply to gay couples who don’t have the option in the majority of states and NO federal benefits whatsoever in marriage.
And yes, this information regarding the foster care system just in CA is appalling.

There was a famous case of a lesbian couple who had taken in an infant girl whose mother had been a drug addict and who’d been imprisoned often. I think the mother finally died of a drug OD.
An aunt (a sister of the mother) petitioned to take the child in her custody along with her husband. The baby by then, had been with her lesbian foster mothers for over a year, was thriving and come through drug withdrawal and other issues very well in their care. She was 18 mos old went she went to live with her aunt and her aunt’s husband.
Within six months, the baby was dead from a beating.
She’d been starved and there was physical evidence of fractures that hadn’t been treated.
The case was part of a series in the LATimes on the willing and competence of gay foster and adoptive parents, and how they are given hyper scrutiny compared to straight couples. Who should have the same requirement.

Family are given priority over non kin foster care. However, sometimes churches are guilty of being advocates for foster care if they object to gay couples having the children.
Just as they are guilty of petitioning for the parole of sex offenders (and other kinds of violent criminals) if it appears they have effectively embraced Christianity.

Either way, it’s always horrible to see child bearing and care privileges bestowed on people who ultimately destroy a child’s life.

However, that presumes that the two persons are allowed to marry. Otherwise it is but another of the artificial barriers that pretend to be in the best interest of children but are designed to be discriminatory.

And, yet again, those who seek to disadvantage gay people have done themselves and the children a disservice.

By denying gay people the ability to form a legal relationship, they deny themselves the right to require a legal relationship before adoption and deny the children a measure of stability that such a requirement might add.

The most likely reason would be they aren’t divorced from previous spouses, they are hedging other state benefits, their relationship ISN’T stable enough or provable as committed enough to ensure that child’s optimum welfare.
These are potential complications. These are indications of less stability than needed.

There are family members who might be in this situation who can adopt the child of a blood relative.
Marital status scrutiny is very different for gay couples.
Single parents might fall into the category of a partner entering the situation the state has no knowledge of later on.

I see why privacy clauses would come into play, but some marital status situations read better as not optimal than others.

Unfortunately, the very children who have been need of foster care, come from situations where their biological father isn’t present, and the mother’s boyfriend endangers the child.
There have been incidents very recently, in CA and in NY where very young children, placed in the home of unmarried foster couples of op sex, hetero orientation, the boyfriends ended up murdering the children.

In all the last two and a half decades of scrutiny of CPS in CA, there was only ONE incident of a lesbian couple abusing the biological son of one of the women.
Just one.
Conversely, there have over two hundred incidents of children abused in foster care by their caregivers in op sex/or hetero homes. And of those, one hundred and seventy eight culminated in the murder of the child.

Straight folks have really bad track records when it comes to child care. Even in foster care.
Which means that discrimination against gay people, strains the system in finding competent care and does nothing to prevent abuse of children by straight people.

And how would this affect laws like the one working its way through the AZ legislature that gives preference to married couples (which excludes same-sex couples, since they can’t legally marry here)?