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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 2002)
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It is important to place children in the best possible environment because many of these children have already led an emotion al and difficult life. For that reason, gay and lesbian couples should not be able to adopt and raise children. Certain norms and traits exist that children need to learn so they can grow up and be able to function in society. These aspects of life are learned from both a female and male role model. Same sex couples raising children deprives them of this luxury. The natural order of life is learned through both a mother and father figure. A young person needs to experience the motherly instinct that only a woman holds, as well as a father’s paternal characteristics. It is a God-given trait that women possess to bear and nurture children, to teach them love, sensitivity and self worth, just as it is an instinct for men to protect and provide for their chil dren and family. These qualities work together, are intertwined and complement each other to give the child a well-balanced childhood. Raising children in a gay or lesbian relationship results in emotional and verbal abuse from their peers. Whether people like it or not, a majority of our society does not tolerate gays. This attitude is passed down through generations of heterosexual families. Adopted kids are put through enough stress and turmoil from not being wanted without the added challenge of having same-sex parents. Allowing a child to be adopted by a homosexu al couple w ill do nothing but add to the stress of having to deal with ridicule from their peers. Placing an innocent child in this unhealthy and stressful situation is selfish. Rosie O'Donnell, one of the most notable faces in the debate of homosexual couples adopt ing children and a lesbian with adopted children, said in an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, “1 don’t think America knows what a gay parent looks like. 1 am the gay parent.” She is the gay parent, true, and she may be the nicest, most caring person in the world, but even O'Donnell can’t escape the truth. Later in the interview O'Donnell herself said, “I do think the kids will get teased.” In the interview with Sawyer, O’Donnell dis missed claims that children adopted by homosex ual couples would be more likely to be gay, but when speaking about her own kids she said she hopes they are straight. “I think life is easier if you're straight. I hope that they are genuinely happy, whatever they are. That if they're gay, they know they’re gay and they live a happy life. But if I were to pick, would I rather have my children have to go through the struggles of being gay in America, or being heterosexual? I would say heterosexual.” Along with being frowned upon by a majority of the population, homosexual ity is considered detestable by God in Leviticus 20:13 in the New International Version of the Bible. Leviticus 20:13 states, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.” The Bible again addresses homosexuality in the New Testament in the book of 1 Corinthians 6:9. If the word of God so plainly speaks out against same sex marriages, then how ean an adoption by a gay or lesbian couple be condoned? Proverbs 22:6 states, Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from 't- According to the Bible, “the way” is not homosexuality. Some might say homosexual couples should have the right to adopt a child as long as they provide love, care and basic needs the child deserves. However, children should not be subjected to this objectionable behavior and should have th e right to grow up in a healthy situation and to an enjoyable life. Adoption by a homosexual couple is unnatural, a transgression and egocentric. Rep. Randy summed it up in an interview with ABC News when he said, "‘Homosexual couples do not provide the kind of stable, wholesome environment that would justify the state having a law that allows them to adopt children.” Mark Wood is a senior journalism major. JENELLE WILSON c ill O’Reilly, host of Fox News’ “The O'Reilly Factor,” has alienated some of his old “friends” by coming out in favor of gay and lesbian adoptions. CNN reports that on Sept. 3, O’Reilly called Stephen Bennet, a minister who regu larly speaks out against homosexuality, a “religious fanatic” during an interview about homosexual adoptions. Organizations such as Concerned Women for America (CWA) and the American Family Association (AFA) have criticized O'Reilly’s strong anti-dis crimination stance and asked their members to protest. In the interview with Bennet, O'Reilly pointed out that adoption is much better for children than the chaotic nature of foster care. It's not a sudden ideological change for him — he has been advocat ing this position for some time. In March, he wrote: “It is flat-out preju dicial to deprive responsible homo sexuals of the right to save kids from transient foster care.” He is absolutely right. For organizations such as CWA or AFA to imply that children are better off in the foster care system than with loving, caring families is des picable, and it is religious fanaticism. They are seeking to deny homosexuals basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution in a secular world due to their interpretation of biblical passages. These groups are letting their irrational and illogical homophobia cloud what is truly best for these children: a stable home that they emotionally and legally belong to. According to the Administration for Children and Family Services, more than 500,000 kids are in out-of-home care. Of those, more than 100,000 are ready to be adopted, but the American Public Welfare Association reports that only 25,000 children are adopt ed each year. Meanwhile, the number of children in foster care keeps increasing, and state agencies are struggling to keep track of where children are living. The National Center on Youth Law reports as many as 1 6 percent of the children waiting to be adopted “age out” every year because nobody wanted them. Once they reach the age of 18, they are kicked out of the system. Sixty-six percent leave with out earning a high school diploma, 34 percent end up on welfare and 25 percent end up homeless. Limiting the definition of a family and restricting who can adopt only makes the future bleaker for these children. Any family that can provide a loving, stable home, no matter what sexual orientation, should be encouraged to do what it can to help. If gay and lesbian couples are willing to take in and provide for children that nobody else wants, they should be able to do so. Groups such as CWA stress that only “traditional” two-parent heterosexual fam ilies should adopt. The only problem is that there are not more than 100,000 “tra ditional” families waiting to adopt these children. Babies given up for adoption rarely wait long for families. According to the National Council for Adoption, there are between one and two million infertile couples who want infants. Older children, however, can wait for eight months to eight years, if they are adopted at all, and most have lived with many different foster families. Many children in the system have physical, mental or emotional problems. Many have learning disabilities, Down syndrome or HIV/AIDS, and bouncing from one foster placement to the next does not help them. Whatever can be done to save children from what O’Reilly calls the “merry go-round of foster care,” should be done. Children in the foster care system desperately want and need families. Gay and lesbian families will not be able to provide a home for all of these waiting children, but they can provide homes for some. LEIGH RICHARDSON •THE BATTALION Jenelle Wilson is a junior political science major. Power plants should not cross the border Power companies to take advantage of fewer environmental regulations in Mexico MELISSA FRIED T he air we breathe is dirty, and h s about to get dirtier. After rolling lackouts left much of California without Power this past summer, it became evident that a hornia either needed more power or a smaller population. Power companies such as nterGen and Sempra could have easily built P ants in Southern California to serve the com munities of San Diego and Los Angeles. owever, they would have been required to j neet I* 16 strict U.S. air quality standards, ustead of shelling out the extra bucks to meet environmental regulations, the companies C d to move south of the border. ^ Mexicali, Mexico is the latest target for ngry U.S. power companies in search of a J g § er backyard to do their dirty work. The y 'U'stic and egotistical outlook is that the n| ted States is helping to generate jobs for Mexicans, and if jobs are created in Mexico, there will be no need for them to cross over into the United States. In truth, the United States is simply transforming the already exis tent institution of the maquiladora - the assembly-line factories that provide cheap Mexican labor for American and multinational corporations under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The workers will be underpaid, overworked and face terrible conditions. Some call them power plants — I call them “energy maquiladoras.” The New York Times quoted an anonymous official of the power company InterGen as saying that this is “what free trade is all about.” Free trade is about the passage of goods between countries without the crazy, exorbitant custom and duty fees that otherwise accompany them. Free trade is about dialogue between countries in order to achieve econom ic prosperity. Free trade is about benefiting both parties involved. Free trade is not about conquering land in Mexico to provide power for the United States. This truly represents a shift in regard to economic and political relations between the United States and Mexico. Mexico is allowing itself to be bought by American capital, which could have long-lasting implications. If Mexico should disagree with some future U.S. policy, there will be nothing to stop it from simply cutting off the power. Also, with a total disregard for the environmental damage that will occur with the opening of a series of power plants, Mexico locks itself into a cor ner: jobs for few, pollution for many. Californians are partly guilty for this. Years before the lack of power became the problem it is today, U.S. companies were will ing to build power plants in California in accordance with regulations. Now they des perately need the energy and are being selfish and greedy in allowing the state to carry out its plans to flood the Mexican border with unregulated plants that will choke out enough pollutants to harm both those north and south of the border. The pollution problem really is as bad as the experts say it is. A Greenpeace report from May concluded that just one of Sempra's many new energy plants is exepected to add 35 percent more carbon dioxide to the atmos phere than what is already produced in California. It appears that global warming will get much worse before it gets any better. If California needs the energy so badly, the plants should have been built in California according to U.S. environmental regulation. With the United States issuing special presi dential permits to allow such construction in Mexico, the companies should have been held accountable to meet U.S. air quality standards, regardless of their physical location. Californians need to wise up and realize that the byproducts of the power they enjoy today will be what kills them tomorrow. Melissa Fried is a sophomore international studies major.
