First of all, let's review what John McCain told the New York Times when first asked about the question of gay adoption in July:
Q: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?
Mr. McCain: I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.
Q: Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage, or not having parents.
Mr. McCain: I encourage adoption and I encourage the opportunities for people to adopt children I encourage the process being less complicated so they can adopt as quickly as possible. And Cindy and I are proud of being adoptive parents.
Q: But your concern would be that the couple should a traditional couple.
Mr. McCain: Yes.
McCain tried to backpeddle a bit later when he found out how very uncool was his assertion that a kid would be better off in an orphange than with gay adoptive parents. But last week, he told the Washington Blade:
"I hope my comments are not misinterpreted. I respect the hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian people who are doing their best to raise the children they have adopted. As someone who adopted a child, Cindy and I know better than most couples the amazing satisfaction that comes from providing love to an unwanted child. I believe a child is best raised by a mother and father because of the unique contributions that they make together to the development of a child."
It sounds pretty much the same to me, except to add that he respects us for doing our "best" in spite of being second-class parents (unlike him and Cindy). I guess that probably means he's not in favor of actually taking our existing kids out of our homes. How very reasurring.
But my real problem with McCain's words is his characterization of adopted children as "unwanted." My two adopted children were not unwanted. They were not unwanted by their first mothers who were forced by circumstances into placing them for adoption, and who still very much love and want them in their lives. They were not unwanted by us or the long list of waiting prospective parents at our adoption agency. Assuming that children placed for adoption--even abandoned--are "unwanted" is a leap to claiming to know the minds and hearts of any number of people with very little to go on. It is to paint a child--in McCain's case, his own child-as somehow less deserving of love, or as "lucky" to have a family.
This attitude, common though it is (and, as adoptive parents reading this know, it is all too common), hurts adoptees. How do you think McCain's daughter feels when she hears her father call her "unwanted?"
Does he mean it the way I've written about it here? He'd probably insist that he certainly doesn't. But he clearly intends to portray himself as heroic--loving above and beyond the call of biological duty--for being an adoptive parent. Adoptive parents are not heroic. They are just parents, like any others. Their children are not lucky (in fact, adoptive children have experienced unfortunate losses by definition), they deserve a loving family as much as anyone else. If after all these years of adoptive parenting, McCain still doesn't get this, it's not surprising he doesn't get same-sex adoption either.
More on McCain/Palin and LGBT Issues:
McCain Talks to the Gays: Part One, Marriage
McCain Talks to the Gays: Part Two, Adoption
Love the Sinner
Sarah Palin: Pro-choice for Gays
Sarah Palin has a Gay BFF
Sarah Palin is not a Lesbian
