According to the United States government, in 2009 there were 423,773 children in the foster-care system.
The population of children in the foster-care system exceeds the population of Atlanta. Of the 423,773, nearly 50 percent were able to return to their home. The other half stayed in the system.
These children who stay in the system end up moving around to different foster-care homes or living in group homes the state funds. When these children turn 18 ( although in some states it's 21 ) , these children go through a process called "aging out."
Nearly 20,000 children age out of the system each year. More than half of these children who do so do not graduate from high school. Only one in eight graduates from a four-year college, 56 percent are unemployed and 27 percent are in jail.
Also, 60 percent of the females end up pregnant in two years of leaving foster care. In addition, since many of these children do not have family support, many experience homelessness at least once after leaving foster care.
Not only do these children face problems while leaving foster care; they are facing problems while in foster care. Trudy Festinger, head of the department of research at the New York University School of Social Work, determined that more than 28 percent of the children in state care had been abused while in the system. We are supposed to be protecting these children from abuse; yet, we are putting them with strangers who are also abusing them.
The children in the foster-care system suffer. There is no way to dispute that fact. They suffer because they have been taken away from their home or were given away. They suffer because there isn't a safe place for them to grow, and there is no family to bond. They move around so much that it is hard for them to form lasting relationships. Because of the instability in their lives these children have nowhere to turn after the system shuts them out. That is why those children who are aged out of foster care experience homelessness.
Now that the facts are presented, does it seem feasible to turn down a prospective parent who is looking to adopt one of these foster-care children who is willing to provide security, love, care, a safe environment and a chance to have a family? I certainly do not think it is logical, but Catholic Charities turns down potential safe and caring homes for these children all the time. It does so because these potential safe and caring homes contain parents who are openly gay.
Catholic Charities does not base its decision to ban openly gay individuals from adopting on scientific evidence or research. It bases discriminatory actions on a scripture that was written thousands of years ago.
The organization says that the idea of a gay couple adopting a child goes against God and it violates religious freedom not to give them the power to "choose" who the adoptive parents can be.
Catholic Charities is making decisions for these children. They are choosing for them to stay in foster care rather than be adopted into a caring home. Where is their freedom? Who is protecting their rights? If these children were asked, they would choose the caring home with a family over an unstable situation, a situation where more a quarter of the children have been abused, verbally, physically or sexually.
Numerous studies have proven conclusively that the sexual orientation of the parent has no psychological bearing on a child. Catholic Charities' priority is not the children but its own selfish idealism, connected to its own religious beliefs that derive from interpretations of writing that existed before the idea of a foster-care system.
A baby doesn't know how to discriminate; they rely on us to teach them.
Webb is a social work student at Northeastern Illinois University. She is planning on writing her thesis on the topic of gay adoption.