Adoptions to Same-Sex Couples. Article up at EPConnection
I have an article up at my denomination’s website, EPConnection, on adoptions to same-sex couples in light of Bethany Christian Services’ change in policy. Here’s an excerpt
Adoption is intended to be a means by which parentless, family-less children are joined to a family that can be the father and mother that their biological parents cannot. Adoption is to be a balm of healing to the injuries of sin. Children need parents, and parents are fathers and mothers. Other caregivers can be good and helpful, but the foster system with its inherent lack of stability also lacks the permanent family unit.
Do children need families? Yes. Do children need fathers and mothers? Yes. However, children adopted by a gay couple are not being protected from sinful distortions of marriage and family. Rather, they are placed into a sinful facsimile of them.
The article was written to explain to EPC people, and the broader public, why the EPC would withdraw our endorsement of BCS.
Purely out of curiosity (not trying to espouse any view or play devil’s advocate), would this by extension mean not endorsing agencies that allow single adults to adopt?
I think it depends. There is a difference between an incomplete family and an imitation family. There are examples of it being the right thing for a single person to adopt a child (e.g. the sole remaining grandparent adopting a newly-orphaned grandchild, an orphaned younger sibling being adopted by an older one, the missionary running an orphanage who legally adopts the unwanted children). Intentionally fostering children to single adults without other mitigating factors runs into the same barriers though.