Photo via ehow.com

Denmark allows gay partners to jointly adopt children

The Danish parliament voted this week to allow homosexuals in legal civil partnerships to adopt children jointly, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com. Monday’s vote, however, was not supported by the government, but was pushed through by a coalition of opposition and breakaway members of the ruling Liberal party. The law was tabled a year ago and follows existing permissions for homosexuals to adopt the existing children of their civil partners.

The Copenhagen Post quoted Justice minister Lars Barfoed who said last week that the government would remain firm in its commitment to vote against the bill.

“I think children as a rule need a mother and a father,” Barfoed said.

There is a wide general acceptance of homosexual behavior in Denmark. Since 1977 the age of sexual consent in the country has been 15 for both heterosexual and homosexual activity, and in 1989 Denmark became the first country in the world to grant legal status to same-sex partnerings. According to 2007 government statistics, 103 out of 712 step-child adoptions were from couples in civil partnerships.

The new law follows the lead of other Scandinavian countries, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, who allow homosexual partners to adopt children.

The decision came despite Denmark being signatory to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, which specifies that the interests of children will be considered in legislation pertaining to them over the interests of adults.

“In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration,” the Convention states.

Article 7 states that each child “shall have, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.”

These same provisions were referred to by the French government in 2006 in its decisions against same-sex adoption, “marriage,” and artificial pro-creation for homosexuals. The government said that “to systematically give preference to adult aspirations over respect for these rights is not possible any more.”

In its 2006 Report on the Family and the Rights of Children, The French National Assembly Commission endorsed the statement of an expert witness: “Inasmuch as there is absolutely no reason to doubt the educative and emotional qualities of homosexual parents, we do not yet know all the effects on the construction of the adopted child's psychological identity. As long as there is uncertainty, however small, is it not in the best interest of the child to apply the precautionary principle, as is done in other domains?”

“Children represent the future of society,” the report continues. They “must not suffer from conditions imposed upon them by adults. The best interests of the child must prevail over adult freedoms... even including the lifestyle choices of parents. The legislator is not obligated to adopt the most permissive foreign legislation,” the report continued.

As various legal accommodations – same-sex “marriage,” civil partnerships and homosexual adoption – are made to the homosexualist movement in jurisdictions around the world, some voices of experts in the psychological field, and former child-victims of the homosexual lifestyle, are speaking out.

Dawn C. Stefanowicz, the author of “Out from Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting,” was raised in a household dominated by her father’s promiscuous homosexual lifestyle. She has given her testimony numerous times to governments considering legalizing same-sex “marriage” and adoption of children by homosexual partners.

In April 2006, Stefanowicz told the Massachusetts Judicial Committee Hearing of her harrowing experiences as a child raised by an active homosexual. She said that the homosexual subculture does not have “boundaries and principles of morality and monogamy” and that even in early childhood, she said her experiences with “transsexualism, and transient and anonymous multiple partners,” were “common.” By ten, she had been introduced to “a gay nude beach, a sex shop, and a gay cruising park.”

“Dad had encouraged me to be more open sexually, while teaching me by example that sex was gratuitous. I could not look to my father as a moral agent in my life.”

SALE! 40% OFF! How to Be Happier 7 Days a Week

TAGS: Denmark gay partners homosexual adoption Convention on the Rights of the Child

[05/07/2010]

Print Version